There is a difference of opinion regarding the results achieved by various kinds of coercive efforts to reduce or even ban the consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants. However, there can be wide agreement on at least four aspects of this debate. Firstly, in all conditions (with or without coercive measures) sincere, creative public campaigns which mobilize communities against the consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants are extremely important and useful. These create conditions in which alcoholics come under the pressure of their near and dear ones, or those whom they respect, to give up alcohol and in turn they also receive the respect of family and community when they stay away from liquor and intoxicants.
The community creates conditions, such as organizing gatherings in the evening to sing, discuss and also do some constructive work, which keep former addicts away from the devil’s brew. Secondly these campaigns cannot just be a one-time affair. Village or hamlet level committees need to be set up, with wider support services and with women in the lead, which will continue such efforts on a continuing basis. Thirdly, although liquor is the most widely used and most harmful intoxicant, this campaign should seek to reduce not one but all intoxicants, or else one may be substituted by another. Hence the campaign should be to also reduce tobacco, smokeless tobacco including gutka, drugs, opium, ganja, etc. Last but hardly the least, the campaign should be well-prepared with a strong base of information regarding the harmful impacts of various intoxicants, particularly alcohol.
This is particularly important keeping in view the various falsehoods and distortions spread by the powerful lobbies relating to the sale and manufacture of various intoxicants. According to the WHO, nearly 3 million deaths are caused in a single year due to alcohol and as many as nearly 200 health problems have been linked to alcohol. A study led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has concluded that the alcohol industry “uses denial, distortion and distraction” to mislead people about the risks of developing cancer from drinking, often employing similar tactics to those of the tobacco industry. However, the WHO says that drinking alcohol is a well-established risk factor for a range of cancers including tumours of the mouth, liver, breast, colon and bowel, and the risk of cancer rises with the level of alcohol consumed.
Earlier heavy drinking was linked to damage to the brain, adverse impact of memory and dementia, but recent findings by researchers of Oxford University and University College London (published in the British Medical Journal) has found that this damage is possible also at far lower levels of alcohol consumption. This is also confirmed by another study involving 1300 women in the USA. Brain damage is likely to be higher in the case of binge drinking, particularly binge drinking involving adolescents. According to the Encyclopaedia of Drugs, Alcohol and Addictive Behaviour, alcohol has been found to have a role in 44 per cent of fatal road accidents.
Regarding non-fatal accidents, this encyclopaedia tells us that alcohol is involved in 23 to 30 per cent of these accidents. In the case of fatal fire and burn accidents, alcohol was found to have a role in 46 per cent of such accidents. The World Report on Violence and Health (WRVH) says that alcohol abuse may also be an important factor in depression. More ominously the WRVH report says that alcohol and drug abuse also play an important role in suicide. In the USA, at least one quarter of all suicides are reported to involve alcohol abuse. According to the American Psychological Association, “Alcohol use and alcoholism can worsen existing conditions such as depression and induce new problems such as serious memory loss, depression or anxiety.”
According to NIH, USA, “Alcohol abuse may lead to suicidality through disinhibition, impulsiveness and impaired judgment but it may also be used as a means to ease the distress associated with an act of suicide.” Researchers who compared alcoholics with non-drinkers found suicide tendencies in the former to be 60 times or more. Research by Razvodovsky in Russia revealed that suicides decreased in areas where vodka consumption was restricted.
According to the WRVH which examined a lot of the available studies on domestic violence, “the evidence is that women who live with heavy drinkers run a far greater risk of physical partner violence, and that men who have been drinking inflict more serious violence at the time of an assault,” More specifically this report mentions a survey in Canada which revealed that women who lived with heavy drinkers were five times more likely to be assaulted by their partners than those who lived with non-drinkers.
The WRVH says that both from the perspective of the assaulter and the victim, alcohol and drug consumption increases the risk of sexual violence, including rape. In the context of the victim, this report says that consuming alcohol or drugs makes it more difficult for women to protect themselves “by interpreting and effectively acting on warning signs.” In the context of the assaulter this report says that alcohol has been shown to play a disinhibiting role in certain types of sexual assault. According to a widely cited paper on ‘alcohol and sexual assaults’ by Antonia Abbey, Tina Zawacki and others of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (USA), “at least one half of all violent crimes involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the victim or both. Sexual violence fits this pattern.
Thus across disparate population studies, researchers consistently have found that approximately one half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol. Depending on the sample studied and the measure used, the estimates for alcohol use among perpetrators have ranged from 34 to 74 per cent.” According to another paper by Antonia Abbey, “the peer norms for most fraternity parties are to drink heavily to act in an uninhabited manner and to engage in casual sex”. According to a recent report from the National Task Force on College Drinking (USA), 1400 college students die each year in alcohol related accidents, 5,000,00 are injured and there are 70, 000 victims of alcohol related sexual assault or date rape. It is widely recognized that alcohol has extremely serious adverse health impacts. According to the WHO status report on health and alcohol (2014), in 2012 about 3.3 million net deaths or 5.9 per cent of all global deaths were attributable to alcohol consumption – 7.6 per cent for males and 4 per cent for females.
In 2012, 139 million net DALYs (disability adjusted life years) or 5.1 per cent of the global burden of disease and injury was attributable to alcohol consumption. The same report has pointed out that the harmful use of alcohol is a component cause of more than 200 diseases and injury conditions. (To Be Concluded) (The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children and A Day in 2071.)