Venezuela's Hugo Chávez attacks alcohol and tobacco

Venezuela's leftist and anti-USA president Hugo Chávez is attempting to persuade his people to adopt the puritanical and anti-capitalist psyche of a socialist revolutionary "New Man." He has greatly increased taxes on alcoholic drinks and on tobacco and has warned that beer trucks that sell on the streets will be confiscated. The government will no longer make dollars available to import luxury whiskies, a step that will greatly increase prices. Chávez says that he himself doesn't drink and only very occasionally smokes a cigarette and then only in private. Chávez's reforms goes beyond alcohol and tobacco. He has called upon Venezuelians to avoid dousing food with hot sauce, to choose low-cholesterol foods, to obey speed limits, to stop buying Barbie dolls, and to reject breast enhancement surgeries. For more, see the AP story here.