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What are these cheap local drinks made from?

THE PEOPLE DAILY, FEBRUARY 5, 2003

A YOUNG Kenyan with potential is dead. Reason consuming mini-packs of "sapphire" one of the many alcoholic spirits on sale in the Kenyan market.

Here is a fellow who probably had no clue about what alcohol is and the effects on the human body.

But the reason for writing this letter is as the ongoing debate has been going on as to whether or not to legalise chang'aa with a lot of emotions guiding debate one point has been constantly overlooked.

Whether one is drinking busaa, mnazi, chang'aa, muratina Smirnoff, Pilsner, champagne, rum, whisky, gin etc, the active ingredient here is ethanol. That is what makes you high or 'aire' as the young are wont to say. This is what alters the mood and gives the high and makes us able to socialise, or forget, or avoid, or celebrate or mourn or whatever else the reason people use to justify their drinking of alcoholic beverages.

Thus, what is overlooked when talking about the so called "illicit brews" is that the licit ones are equally lethal. In fact in Kenya right now there are several brands of alcohol manufactured by unscrupulous people and which are lethal to the welfare and health of Kenyans.

The whole issue of mini-packs will need to be looked into again. Look around you in any estate in Nairobi or occasion and you will find young people guzzling these drinks in disgustingly copious quantities, blissfully unaware of the effect.

Peer pressure, or being macho are the main reasons why young people drink. The same reasons which started me off over 27 years ago. (I started in Form One to impress girls as I was under the impression that girls only went for tough guys. The image of a tough guy in 1974 was a cigarette dangling permanently from your lip, and drinking whisky neat. Clint Eastwood et al. Seems nothing has changed.

David Ogot,
Recovering alcoholic
Nairobi.

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