Alcohol Prohibition

Views on the ills or benefits of alcohol fall into three categories. First, the far right believes with utter certainty that alcohol consumption is harmful and nil of any sort of benefits. This group believes that alcohol consumption cannot benefit a society in any angle, be it social or economic. Quite to the contrary, it is harmful in many ways, i.e. health wise damaging, economically drain-full and socially destructive. Second, there are those who believe that alcohol can have its benefits if used moderately and with high degree of responsibility. In which case they believe it can add some economic benefits to a society and offer means for people to relax and unburden from their daily life pressures. A third group on the far left believes that life with no alcohol isn’t complete. This group associates alcohol with most of their activities, from business meetings to leisure gatherings.

My view on this is simply that, it is true that alcohol consumption can benefit people if used moderately and responsibly. It can be a good vehicle for relaxation and meeting people and in some cases could in fact open doors for economic benefits. However, alcohol usage is a progressive disease that is very infectious. Statistics do prove that alcohol usage is highly costly and for most people it is health damaging. Alcohol is also blamed for breaking many marriages resulting in broken families that ultimately result in broken societies.

Yes there are those who seemingly take a responsible approach to alcohol consumption, however, they are very few. In order to allow those few responsible drinkers, societies have no choice but to allow it for everyone and that’s where the problem lies. It is not possible to allow only those few responsible drinkers while prohibiting those irresponsible ones because the level of responsibility can not be measured or assessed. Furthermore, even for the responsible alcohol users, alcohol is more less a dead weight loss to society due to its very nature. Contrary to the essentiality of food or shelter, alcohol has no measurable value to society but yet costs societies hugely. In Britain for example, the cost of alcohol was estimated to be 20 billion dollars in 2005. You can figure out how much benefits could that kind of cash have brought to the Brits if it was used in areas of more benefits.

Alcohol is also responsible for facilitating other ills in societies. For example no one doubts the effects of alcohol on people's sexual behavior. It is a scientific fact that most illegitimate sex is initiated by the influence of alcohol and hence much of STDs transmission could be linked to alcohol consumption.

PLEASE ADD YOUR VIEWS…..

Please contribute your thoughts on why Alcohol Prohibition is a practical law. i.e. what purposes can it serve?