To drink or not to drink

The Ministry of Health and the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate are confused in the testimony

The right to drink alcohol while driving still remains a mystery for Russian motorists. The order of the Ministry of Health, which came into force yesterday, prescribing to narcologists what is considered intoxication and what is not, did not bring clarity to this issue. It turned out that such a long-awaited document mainly concerns forensic experts who investigate road accidents and determine the causes of the accident.

The Ministry of Health actually divided drivers into two groups by the order “On medical examination for intoxication” - “sane” and “insane”. Injured drivers who are in serious condition or died as a result of a traffic accident are considered insane. Sane - those who were simply detained by an inspector to check for intoxication. For each category, the Ministry of Health has prescribed its own standards for the maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of alcohol in the blood and rules for conducting examinations. With the “emergency” doctors solved everything extremely simply. A person involved in an accident while driving is automatically sent to a hospital, where after first aid is provided, a blood test is taken from him. If the maximum permissible concentration of alcohol exceeds 0.5 ppm, which approximately corresponds to a bottle of beer or a glass of wine, the driver is considered drunk. And a corresponding entry is made in the investigative materials. With drivers in full health, everything is much more complicated. In this case, the main thing to determine his condition is not a blood test, but a general medical examination. “The alcohol content in the body is, of course, detected, but it is not the basis for a medical report,” police colonel Vladimir Kuzin, head of the administrative policy and inquiry department of the main department of the traffic police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, explained to the correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper. -- The fundamental factor for doctors and the police is not a green “sobriety tube” or a blood test, but clinical data and test results for coordination of movements and reaction speed. A person can be considered drunk even if his blood contains only 0.2 ppm.” As you know, a driver loses his license for driving while intoxicated.

By the way, according to the order of the Ministry of Health, in order to be referred for examination, one of six criteria for intoxication is sufficient, including the smell of alcohol on the breath, instability, speech impairment, severe hand trembling, behavior inappropriate to the situation and change in skin color. A traffic police officer only needs one of these indicators to send the driver to a medical facility. Or if the inspector is dishonest, the car owner will be asked to pay on the spot. By the way, there are not so many special institutions in which, according to the decree of the Russian government, examinations can be carried out. There is only one such hospital in multimillion-dollar Moscow - City Hospital No. 17 on Kakhovka.

The vagueness of the wording in determining the maximum permissible concentration is further complicated by the fact that the new order of the Ministry of Health contradicts the order of the USSR Ministry of Health from 1988. About 15 years ago, doctors prescribed that the natural alcohol content in a person’s blood can reach 0.4 ppm. Especially if a person takes alcohol-containing medications or at least drinks a lot of kefir. No one has canceled this standard. The innovation of the Ministry of Health contradicts the International Convention on Mutual Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions in Cases of Administrative Violations of Traffic Regulations, according to which the maximum permissible concentration for alcohol is set at 0.8 ppm. Russia signed this document in 1997. There is also one more legal subtlety. The Ministry of Health cannot determine the rate of alcohol consumption by drivers and make changes to traffic rules. Doctors are just conducting an examination. Therefore, how the situation on the roads will actually be resolved remains unclear. It seems that traffic police officers, doctors, and lawyers agree on this opinion - for now, in reality, everything will remain as before.

Anna ShPAK