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EAST AFRICAN STANDARD APRIL 15TH. 2003

RECENTLY, a young man allegedly died after consuming "Sapphire" mini-packs. This sad death is a reminder that the Chang'aa debate, as it has been dubbed by the press and members of the public, is not about our use of chang'aa per se, but our whole outlook on the use of alcohol.

Chang'aa, or any other alcohol, has it's active ingredient ethanol and that is what causes one to get 'high' and leads to domestic and other violence, road accidents, petty (and sometimes not so petty) crimes, deaths by misadventure, disharmony, poor finances, destruction of families ad infinitum. These are the ramifications from any alcohol whether champagne or chang'aa or beer.

To simplify this debate one must first look at why we drink drink alcohol (or consume any other mood altering substance) in the first place.

Like me who first tasted alcohol in Form One in 1974 blissfully unaware of the horrific road I would travel for the next 27 years, today's youngsters have no idea of the genie they are uncorking every time they open a container of alcohol. And this genie can be, if provoke by abuse, extremely malevolent. Yet there seems to be nobody making a concerted effort to educate the public on the dangers of alcohol use and abuse.

Nobody, until recently the Office of the National Coordinator was gazetted resulting in the formation of the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA), headed by the indomitable, indefatigable Joseph Kaguthi, former PC of Nairobi.

If we are to succeed in reducing the chaos and death caused by alcohol consumption, we must be indefatigable in our efforts and indomitable in spirit if we are to save our youth.

Yet what do many Kenyans say when Kaguthi and other like-minded concerned individuals try to advise. They scoff. They laugh. They say the fellow is crying wolf and there is no cause for alarm.

Nobody can actually interfere with one "right" to drink. So they drink on defiantly who imitate them as they are also spurred on by the constant media bombardment on TV screens, newspapers, billboards and radio promotions until a car crash or death nudges them into numbing sobriety and reality. Then they wonder aloud why God has forsaken their homes?

Every day I hear parents asking where they went wrong?

Unfortunately, the consequences of ones drinking are usually brutally borne by those close to the drinker who were not there when he was having his "fun" enjoying his right to "right" to drink. The drinkers should also have the right to bear the consequences.

Mini-packs are now being sold all over the place including on the street with sweets and biscuits. What happened to the Liquor Licensing Act?

So, do we legalise chaang'aa? Yes for it is only when it is legal that periodic mass deaths or blindness due to methanol poisoning will end.

Let's educate the public. Once we have educated the public we will have done our duty. We will not have our youth dying needlessly as happened recently.

David Ogot snr,
Recovering Alcoholic

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