Sobering Strategy

It might be said that next to freedom, there is nothing a Pole cherishes as much as his vodka. However, alcohol abuse has become one of the country's most serious problems. According to estimates by the Roman Catholic Church, 3 million Poles are drunk on any given day. A worried church and the outlawed Solidarity trade union have joined forces to revive a two-year-old campaign urging Poles to give up their excessive liquor consumption, at least for the month of August.

.The reasons for the vodka boycott are political as well as spiritual. Underground opposition leaders have accused the government of trying to demoralize the country by making liquor easily available. While the government would also like to see drunkenness disappear, it hardly wants to cut profits from the $4 billion state-owned vodka monopoly. Polish workers have only once complied with efforts to make them give up their drink: during the August 1980 protest that gave birth to Solidarity. Some Poles feel that the latest call to sobriety would be a fitting way to commemorate that occasion.