Dear Editor,
Recent seemingly minor news events reflect Guyana’s ambivalence towards the use of alcohol, and it seems as though the idea that alcohol is causing serious problems is warring with the idea that Guyana is now a free market society and that anything goes.
The irony started at GuyExpo. The Ministry of Health ‘Mall’ had a tiny booth tucked away to the side, hidden almost as though the government is scared of confronting the major alcohol distributors who were there, side by side on the open tarmac – no one could avoid the alcohol advertising at GuyExpo.
We read in the Stabroek News on October 25: ‘Experts concerned at rising drug consumption in Latin America’ that “Secretary of the National Commission on Drugs of Uruguay, Milton Romani, said that “addressing the excessive consumption of alcohol is a high priority to reduce the harm related to this tendency and block the road to other drugs.” However, in Guyana we know that dealing with alcohol as a drug like any other is not going to work, because alcohol is being advertised and promoted unlike the illegal substances.
While we read of the presence of alcohol in the destruction of lives and livelihoods – whether in road accidents or interpersonal violence, we are also flooded with campaigns and promotions which are targeted at ensuring that alcohol consumption remains high (the messages about ‘responsible drinking’ are about as effective as the surgeon general’s warning about cigarette smoking.) DDL offered us free tickets to their cricket match for every bottle of rum purchased, Mackeson has money under the cork, but there are no rewards of free tickets or money for whoever might decide to abstain and follow what the Ministry of Health is trying to advocate.
On August 29, 2010 Kaieteur News carried an article with young cricketer Jonathan Foo, who said, “Alcohol is not good for you if you want to play sports.”
And yet, we read that for the cricket teams to survive they have to rely on rum and beer consumption and sales, their direct targets being mostly men, including young men and boys who enjoy the game. Football and basketball are all being used in Guyana as ways to market alcohol.
As we grapple with manhood and being a man, we see billboards saying that ‘Real Men’ must drink – and the pictures are of a man who does not have just one woman.
The marketing people say that they have no responsibilities whatsoever; that the laws are there. (The fines went up for selling to minors, but when last was any person charged for selling alcohol to a minor, and we all know that school sports and other events, such as the last day of school, are all occasions when the products sold and advertised by these companies are available to minors and the people who hang out with them.)
We learn from another news item that Ansa McAl would be having special promotions during Christmas, a time when many families hope and pray that there would be less consumption of alcohol.
One could be positive and wonder, do we have this aggressive advertising because people are buying less, or is it that in our wonderful, booming, free-market economy, life does not matter as much as profits and money, and that nothing will be done until we get a certain set of statistical numbers to convince people that we need to do something?
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
