Alcohol consumption

Jul 10, 2025 Editorial, News

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Kaieteur News – On Wednesday we reported Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum, saying that excessive consumption of alcohol is among the major causes of criminal activities in Guyana. He did not elaborate on this point, although it is understood that most of the disorderly type of crimes are as a result of alcohol consumption. Blanhum acknowledged that Guyanese still feel unsafe although statistics show that crime has plummeted. “In reality even one violent crime is one too many” the crime chief said, adding, “We are working and we will not stop working until every Guyanese feels safe,” he is quoted as saying.

His comments come on the heels of the World Health Organization (WHO) launching a major new initiative urging countries to raise real prices on tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks by at least 50% by 2035 through health taxes in a move designed to curb chronic diseases and generate critical public revenue. The “3 by 35” Initiative comes at a time, the WHO said when health systems are under enormous strain from rising noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), shrinking development aid and growing public debt.

The consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks are fueling the NCD epidemic. NCDs, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, account for over 75% of all deaths worldwide. A recent report shows that a one-time 50% price increase on these products could prevent 50 million premature deaths over the next 50 years. “Health taxes are one of the most efficient tools we have,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Assistant Director-General, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Control, WHO. “They cut the consumption of harmful products and create revenue governments can reinvest in health care, education, and social protection. It’s time to act.”

In Guyana, it has long been a rite of passage for a boy who desired to be seen as a “man” to not only to begin consuming alcohol, but to show his peers that he could “hold his drinks”.

From the mid-teens, then, drinking became a way of life for young men. In the last decade, this rite of passage has evidently spread to include young women. This development, (or degeneration) is ironic, but maybe it is a case of “if you can’t beat them, then join them”.

The young men, after all, would have continued with their heavy drinking after becoming married; unleashing in the process a whole syndrome of dysfunctionality into their family life.

Since a substantial chunk of the family’s budget went into the “rumshops”, the wives were forced into a hardscrabble existence as they struggled to feed and clothe their children.

And the operative word was “forced”: violence became the norm in such families since the men were frequently out of control because of the heavy alcohol consumption. They had become alcoholics; but those around them kept on excusing them and their behaviour as “the way things were”.

We believe the Ministry of Health and other agencies must launch a countrywide programme to educate our populace about alcoholism in simple terms. For example, that alcoholism is a disease that includes the following four symptoms: craving – a strong need, or urge, to drink; loss of control – not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun; physical dependence – withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety after stopping drinking; and tolerance – the need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to get “high”.

The stress has to be on the fact that alcoholism is a disease and like any other disease, it is treatable. Most Guyanese evaluate alcoholics and alcoholism on moral grounds – the individual is said to be “misbehaving” or “playing bad”. Whether this is true or not, this approach descends invariably solely into moral suasion and ignores the route of utilising the medical and psychological therapeutic treatments that have been proven to have a positive impact in the treatment of alcoholism.

Maybe alcoholism cannot be cured, but it is definitely treatable and the moral suasion could possibly be used to convince the alcoholic to seek treatment. All the approaches to dealing effectively with alcoholism stress the importance of the environment in which the alcoholic – whether recovering, in treatment or recalcitrant – is located.

It is important that alcohol is not freely available or alcoholic friends are not the only social network available. In Guyana, however, lax licensing procedures have seen rum shops percolate every nook and cranny of the villages and towns. When most of the villages were laid out there were (and are) strict laws that rum shops could only be located on the front street: this has gone by the wayside.

Rum shops are even found cheek and jowl with mandirs, churches and masjids – a presence that expressly contravenes a standing statute on the books. The Ministry of Health must coordinate its efforts with the Ministry of Housing to recreate a healthy environment that does not almost compel the creation of a nation of alcoholics.

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• Alcohol consumption, Crime Chief, crime rate, criminal activities, Editorial, Wendell Blanhum

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