-‘self-restraint would do the trick,’ Ramjattan says
Almost three years after President David Granger promised measures to deal with alcohol abuse, a policy appears to be staggering to life but there is no clear idea when it would be fully developed and implemented.
In the meantime, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan is urging self-restraint when consuming alcohol and said that people must understand that alcohol is bad for them. Speaking at the Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU) annual staff training recently, the minister echoed sentiments previously expressed by others. He said that it is time to change the existing alcohol culture which includes binge drinking and even encouraging minors to consume such beverages.
“…It has to do largely with how we cultivate our next generation. We sometimes feel that we could tell our young kids ‘come tek a lil drink’ and we have done two surveys, a school survey and a household survey that proves that children in Guyana start drinking at the age [of] 11 and Guyanese are the biggest binge drinkers in the entire Caribbean. When we tek one, we want two, then three, then four, five and so one. Then we get drunk,” Ramjattan said.
