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"Kenya Airways plane slams into heart of Nairobi, Kenya's capital: all 300 aboard and thousands on the ground feared dead in worst aviation disaster on the African continent, possibly in all aviation history."

Imagine this headline and it's variations, plastered on the front pages of all the papers in this country as well as graphic footage on all the television stations? Imagine the shock, flags at half-mast, national mourning. Investigations as to how this had been allowed to come about.

Or what about another media report school bus crashes off escarpment killing all 180 students on board. "News reports indicate that the 180 students drawn from primary schools from all over Kenya to give their views on drug abuse in Nairobi, were on their way to Nakuru as part of their country-wide awareness tour on alcohol and other drugs, when their bus plunged off the escarpment killing all the children and the four adults including the driver on board."

What would you feel at the loss of so many innocent young lives? Pure souls who had set out on such a noble mission to save lives through information on the scourge of alcohol and other drugs. Young, unsullied hearts lost to their parents and the nation forever, tragically more.

Then as the sorrow settled on Kenyans like a dark, impenetrable, wet, cold fog, it would slowly begin to be dissipated by the collective, searing heat of anger as all and sundry ask ed "why? How had this disaster been allowed to happen?"

This mass outrage would stem from the fact that these tragedies had occurred because the pilot of the plane or the driver of the bus had been drunk.

Not an accident such as a mechanical fault, but someone who was not fit to be in the position of being responsible for those machines as well as all the passengers onboard had been allowed to do so.

Someone else's drinking had caused thousands to loose loved ones. Someone's drinking had led to a whole nation going into mourning. This whole tragedy need not have happened. It was not an accident. So someone had to pay.

"Is this kind of gruesome, horrific scenario what we are going to need to bring us to our senses over the drug alcohol? Already alcohol is cutting huge swathes of destruction and pain through Kenyan society, and yet families grit their teeth and suffer in silent shame, preferring to keep this suffering to themselves due to stigma surrounding the disease of alcoholism".

The above are the opening paragraphs to an article I wrote in 2003 (The People On Sunday "The local press as co-alcoholics in alcoholism" November 30, 3003) the thrust of which was "the Kenyan media can in one month, one month, knock down the wall of ignorance, denial and shame that surrouns the disease of alcoholism. In one month, the media, working in concert, can do more about informing the public that aloholism is a disease and that it is treatble than has been done in the 40 years since independence."

yet in this article as in countless others I have written I constantly seek to point out that the issue is not solely on the disease of alcoholism (which paradoxically is not caused by alcohol but more of genetics thought the alcohol triggers the disease) but more of the drug alcohol and how we view it and use it.

For as long as we continue to regard beverage alcohol as an ordinary consumer product in he same ranks as milk and fruit juice and not as a mood altering drug capable of causing grossly impaired judgement scenarios such as described above are bound to cross from the realms of imagination to the horros of reality.

In the novel The Pilot by Robert P. david which was made into a major film the teaser aptly describes this scenario. "fasten your seat belts. No smoking. Keep your fingers crossed. Your pilot has a secret that could kill you."

The blurb on the back cover goes on to say "he's flown airliners for 20 years. His wife hates him. The woman he loves has no time for him. Now he's started drinking on the job. One hundred and fifty innocent people are about to learn his secret - the hard way..."

of course fictional pilot Mike hagen's secret is that he is an alcoholic yet he is the captain of a major airliner. In the quthors note at the beginning of the novel davis asks "many will ask, even pilots: could there possibly be an alcoholic airline captain? Unfortunately the answer is yes, there have been some". He goes on to point out that the main incidents in the novel are based on fact.

The novel was published in 1976. The opening quote in this article was written in 2003. This is 2006. I want to paraphrase the same question? Could we possibly have an alcoholic captain piloting a plane?

recently, we witnessed a mock crash simulated at the country's largets airport in what was a drill aimed at testing the emergency readiness of the various crews who deal with these situations. These drills are meant to be carried out periodically and are made to be as realistic as possible to accurately gauge the disaster preparedness of these institutions.

But how stringent are the checks on those with the enormous resposnibility of piloting these craft. Specifically pilots alcohol consumption habits. For even when one is off duty, depending on when they will next pilot a plane how they drink will determine if they are impaired several hours or even the next day by alcohol.

many may think this is overreaction verging on being hysterical. This is precisely because any discussion of the drug alcohol elicits various wideranging responses from all and sundry and which are extremely volatile as they are based on emotion more than fact.

We need to put emotions aside and discuss this drug which runs like a river through us in a level headed manner so that we come up with policies that we will enforce. A thought to leave you with which is not emotional just a fact. When Iw as in sumbi treatment centre for my alcoholism in 2000, one of the clients there was an airline captain from a leading Kenyan airline. he was there for the same reason I was - alcoholism.

The writer is the programmes director of the goinghomedotcom Trust, a media NGO involved in drug abuse awareness

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