C ₂H ₆O: Stop w(h)ining and put a cork in it

As of today South Africans are again allowed to buy flavoured ethanol. We can raise a toast to celebrate that we only saw some 5000 cases of our local (and more contagious than the original) coronavirus in a day. We are sliding down the tail of the second wave.

C ₂H ₆O is the chemical formula of ethanol which is the alcohol in wine, beer, gin, whisky, vodka, brandy, tequila, cider ….every single alcholic beverage has this compound as a defining ingredient. Two Carbon atoms, six hydrogens and an oxygen bonded together. Three of the top four most common elements in the universe, (helium makes up the other) created by the fermentation of the sugars in grain and fruit and we go crazy for it.

A representative of the alcohol industry that churns out every drop of the 28,9 liters of pure alcohol per person per annum that those South Africans who drink consume (World Health Organisation data) pleaded to a journalist that government should consult with the liquor industry and not take them by surprise when next deciding that hospital beds are needed to take care of COVID patients instead of the alcohol related trauma cases that flood the emergency rooms every weekend.

Let’s just pause and consider that figure for a moment. It means that those of us who drink alcohol consume enough of it in a year to allow every single one of us to guzzle a six pack of beer every single day of the year. How does that work?

Let’s assume a 4% alcohol per volume of a typical beer which means that a 340ml bottle of beer contains 13,6 millilitres of pure alcohol. To reach the 28900 millilitres of undiluted alcohol that the WHO says each drinker imbibes in a year, every one of us would need to drink 2125 bottles of 340 millilitres of beer or about 5,8 beers every day of the year.

For goodness’ sake – let’s not surprise the alcohol industry with anymore unexpected limitations on their ability to keep pumping ethanol into our population.

How is it that the industry that produces these oceans of fermented sugar is speaking about the loss of income and jobs and the cost to the economy of the sales ban but breathes hardly a word about the cost of those 6 beers a day per person it sells to us?

And the cost is incalculable and includes impoverishment of lived experience, death, healthcare and more. It’s a price exacted in terms of violence, motor vehicle accidents, work absenteeism, liver, throat, kidney and brain disorders, domestic violence, poor child rearing practices and the cornucopia of ills goes on and on.

What responsibility does the ethanol industry https://salba.co.za/ take for this cost? Why is their website headlined with concerns about the ban and appeals to lift the ban but not to scrutiny of why the ban is necessary? And the answer is not that COVID necessitates the ban. COVID has simply muscled in on the hospital beds that are usually filled because of those 6 beers a day.

Is it not absurd that the purveyors of an addictive psychoactive drug, who advertise it to an impoverished population by associating it with social status, success, sex appeal, fun and good times should bleat about a lack of consultation when their sales are curtailed.

And what should we make of a culture that doesn’t seem to raise an eyebrow at this absurdity and justifies it by pointing out how many livelihoods are dependent on the manufacture, distribution and retail of this super abundance of ethanol?

I need a drink just to think about it.