Mail and Guardian covers Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

The Mail and Guardian have a done a special feature on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and I am grateful that someone is paying some attention to one of the most pressing issues facing our society. It's a pity that the M&G failed to ask the more difficult questions or examine the root causes of the problem.

1. Is alcohol a drug?
2. What explains the steady climb in the FAS rate for the past 10 years?
3. Why is it not illegal to knowlingly serve alcohol to a pregnant woman?
4. Does the South African Constitution provide adequate rights for the affected individuals?
5. Will the CDA be held accountable for what has happened on their watch?

The answers are not always as clear as you would think.

1. Alcohol is a drug. This a fact. This FACT is not so readily accepted by South Africa's National Drug Master Plan of 2006. In defining the term "drug" as it used in the document alcohol is excluded as the "drugs" in question are the "illicit ones" "Although not specifically included in the definition, alcohol.... are also recognised as major contributors to health and social problems in South Africa." Excluding alcohol from the term "drug" does not stop the NDMP boldly confusingly stating that "Alcohol remains the primary drug of abuse in South Africa." That the government does not view alcohol as a drug might explain (with the exception of tobacco) why all "drugs" are the responsibility of the Department of Health, but alcohol is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry (clause 4.2.13).

2. Where does the increasing steadily increasing rate of FAS come from? In the past 10 years the average alcohol consumtion per person has rocketed from 10 liters to 20 liters (figures from the 1998 and 2006 NDMP) The handbrake went off in 1998 and is still off. One of the world's largest drug manufacturers and distributors (SAB-Miller) has been supplying anyone with money with their product regardless of the consequences. You will not read this anywhere, as the media, along with the rest of society has been so overwhelmed by advertising for alcohol that resistance seems futile.

3. There is no good reason for it to still be legal to knowingly serve alcohol to a pregnant woman. That it is not illegal to allow a mother to make a vegetable of her child is seriously wrong.

4. The South African Constitution, fantastic document that it is, is based on the notion of equality. FAS sufferers do not really understand right from wrong, so they have a reduced capacity to commit crimes. Is it fair on them to not have the law make provision for them? FAS sufferers are born without any real prospect of a job much less a career. Will our society ever make provision for these people. It's not fair to live in a country where the law is based on equality and be born so much less equal than everyone else.

5. The Cental Drug Authority tasked with looking after drugs in the country have a lot to answer for. The results speak for themselves. Not even Josef Mengele doing his worst could produce a policy so obscene and peverse to produce a society where 10% are born retarded, valueless and seemingly worthless.

Alcohol should be policed as stringently as tobacco, Central Drug Authority chair Frank Kahn believes. So 2001... 2009... how is that coming along "Frank"? I am judging you on your results, NOT your pretty little words.. Message for Frank: "Hey Frank.. Your ignorance, intransigence and incompetence has put you in the same league as Mengele... Fuck you! Josef was a sick twisted evil man in extra-ordinary circumstances.... What is your excuse?"

No one has ever been held responsible for this tragedy. Naturally I look at the people and institutions tasked with protecting the people.... like the CDA and "Frank"...