Czech press survey - September 15

The state does not evidently control poisonous alcohol, that is why it has introduced an unprecedented measure. The police must find the source and all tainted alcohol because drinking may be hazardous to life, Martin Zverina writes in daily Lidove noviny today.

The extent of the action that cannot be overlooked will lower society´s toleration of illicit alcohol and those who produce it, Zverina writes.

He says people, if they would like to curse the state because of the measures, should remember that one makes a mistake with methanol only once in life.

A short-term prohibition definitely has some importance - it may avert further unnecessary deaths and give the investigators more time to uncover the octopus that is remarkably dangerous, widespread and silent, Rostislav Matulik writes in daily Mlada fronta Dnes.

The material damage from the prohibition will depend on how long the measure will be applied, Matulik writes.

He says seven billion crowns are collected annually in alcohol taxes, which means that prohibition would have to last many weeks before the state would incur any bigger damage.

But what has happened is a huge damage and tragedy, and the fact that tens of thousands of poisonous bottles are moving along the country will definitely not improve its image, Matulik writes.

The principle that hard alcohol should only be sold in state shops like in Sweden is based on Swedish and other European socialism, but the Czech Republic rejects this socialism as any other one, Petr Uhl writes in Pravo.

The Czechs also reject the strict regulation of the sales and consumption of alcohol applied in the United States, Uhl writes.

It is a question whether the police team called Metyl that has been created to investigate the scandal will also help the government to abandon rightist cliches that criminals make use of to kill people, Uhl writes.

($1=18.659 crowns)

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz