Regulating cheap booze not a solution

VIEWS have been expressed on the need to regulate cheap alcohol in Papua New Guinea.
This is not supported by any scientific or rational explanation.
Human behaviour is a manifestation of how we condition our body and brain, and in our adaptation to the environment we live in.
Alcohol production, distribution, sale and consumption was introduced to PNG at the time of colonisation.
However, this activity was restricted.
Widespread alcohol consumption became an entrenched activity among Papua New Guineans after Independence.
Before cheap alcohol became available for consumption in recent times, so much damage to society, lives and property has been done by regulated alcohol production, distribution, sale and consumption.
The monetary and social costs of this is enormous.
The cost incudes medical services and medicines, cost of damage to property, cost of litigations relating to alcohol-related violence and death, funeral expenses, transportation cost and psychological costs (trauma, depression, anger, sadness and frustration).
Alcohol is called “social bad” because it leaves a trail of significant monetary and social costs on the lives of people.
It does not matter whether it is cheap, expensive or regulated.
Its impact on society is the same everywhere in the world.
In PNG, it is even more pervasive.
Alcohol does not add any value to the economic, social and political development in any country.
It only pushes a country backward in time, as more and more people become addicted to it. In PNG, the demand for any form of alcohol is not responsive to its price. This means that more people are consuming and getting addicted to it no matter how expensive or cheap it is.
Only draconian measures and enforcement are required in PNG to curtail its consumption.
Measures such as total ban on alcohol, banning medical services to alcohol patients, imposing hefty medical fees on alcohol patients, execution and life sentence should be implemented in the country.
These draconian measures should take into consideration other growing drug addiction problems in PNG, which are consumption of tobacco and cigarette, betel nuts and illegal drugs.
Regulation of cheap alcohol is not a solution to its perverse addiction problem in PNG.

Concerned Citizen