The Ministry of Health of Ukraine plans to stop issuing quotas for the sale of ethyl alcohol to manufacturers of alcohol-containing tinctures and has already prepared a draft of the relevant resolution.
Acting Health Minister Uliana Suprun posted the following message on Facebook: “There is an unfortunate practice of using alcohol-based tinctures instead of alcohol. Now they can be purchased at the pharmacies, and they are much cheaper than alcoholic beverages. For unlike manufacturers of alcoholic beverages, manufacturers of “medicinal” tinctures do not pay excise taxes.”
Now manufacturers of tinctures receive quotas for ethyl alcohol in the Ministry of Health and the volume of requests is increasing. While the National Action Plan for Noncommunicable Diseases and the Association Agreement with the EU provide for increasing excise taxes on alcohol, positioning tinctures as medicines allows manufacturers to keep prices low, which causes abuse.
“Manufacturers of alcohol-containing tinctures will buy alcohol and pay excise taxes, as do producers of alcoholic beverages, for example. And the medicines will remain the medicines,” – according to Suprun, such a move is aimed at protecting public health in order to stop the use of alcohol-containing tinctures as a cheaper substitute for alcohol.
