OBLIQUE ANGLE : Ban on alcohol good, but ...

Come March 1, and alcohol sold in sachets, popularly known as viroba, will be history. This is as per Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa’s order. He was speaking in Manyara Region on Thursday.

He argued that a sizeable number of the members of the society were highly being affected by hard drinks.

One group that has been hit the most, according to media reports, is that of motorcycle taxi drivers. As a result, some have been involved in accidents, some being fatal.

Alcohol dependence is a psychiatric problem. Apart from passing bans, society has a duty of trying to rehabilitate them. The recovery journey may not be that simple. They deserve to be loved and shown the way out of their problem.

The ban is a good move. It will cut the supply of such drinks and remove it from the streets. Efforts must also be geared towards controlling the making and distribution of illicit brew, gongo. This is because those who previously took alcohol in sachets would now turn to gongo.

The 2014 Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health hints on the extent of the problem in Tanzania: “Some 67.4 per cent of men and 65.1 per cent of women in every 100,000 alcohol users aged 15 and older are prone to death caused by liver cancer as a direct consequence of heavy drinking”.

This move reminds us of another ban by the government but was never implemented. This was on the ban on manufacturing, distribution and use of plastic bags.

It was pledged last year that come January, 2017 and there will be no more plastic bags in circulation.

We still have them. And, probably manufacturing is still going on. The government needs to act. Wherever you go, you won’t miss seeing plastic bags around. The environment is suffering and so do the living organisms.

Plastic bags form a huge business—yes—but then at the cost of our environment, our health. Future of our planet is in danger. “Plastic bags will not be used in the country from January 1,” Mr Luhaga Mpina, deputy minister in the Vice-President’s Office responsible for Environment, told a Parliamentary Committee on Trade on Oct 24, 2016.

Let the government act.

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminium can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use.

And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminium cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: “Look at this Godawful mess,” quote from Art Buchwald.