FAS - alcohol's ultimate legacy

Alcohol is by far the most dangerous drug in South Africa at present. Nearly 60% of non natural deaths have alcohol in their system and alcohol makes a massive at the emergency rooms. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is what happens when a mother drinks alcohol during her pregnancy. 

FAS CANNOT be detected at birth, as the child has not yet developed sufficiently for FAS characteristics to show. The alcohol industry is not required to label every bottle of booze with a "DO NOT DRINK IF PREGNANT" label - a feat of unrivalled irresponsibility.

 

Average alcohol consumption doubled from 1998 to 2006 (according to the National Drug Master Plans of those respective years) How did this happen? First, alcohol was excluded from the definition of "drug". This dishonesty has had massive consequences. Unlike all other drugs, alcohol found a home in the DTi.

"For the purpose of the NDMP, the Department of Trade and Industry is responsible for the regulation of the liquor industry. In particular, the department administers and enforces the Liquor Act (No. 59 of 2003) through the National Liquor Authority (NLA). The objectives of the Act are to reduce the socioeconomic and other costs associated with alcohol abuse and to promote the development of a responsible and sustainable liquor industry." p35 2006 National Drug Master Plan

No one asked what was sustainable. The alcohol industry were given a free pass to sell as much as possible to whoever, whenever. The spigot was opened and it hasn't been closed since. A massive network of shebeens have sprung up around the country to distribute the alcohol. SAB have built plausible deniability into the way it works in that it has outsourced its distribution. The Central Drug Authority have the most massive case of "looking the other way".

Back in 2006 I speculated that the FAS rate might hit 10% in 2010. My speculation was based on the simple linear projected historical growth. 

 

"Johanna de Waal, director at Ignite, an NGO which runs programmes on farms, said that the problem was inherited through the “dop” system, where farmworkers were paid with alcohol.

She said of 25 people from the farm tested, 17 were positive for alcoholism.

According to Ignite, 12.2 percent of children in the Western Cape have Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Thirteen percent of children at schools for the blind are there after being exposed to alcohol during pregnancy. Despite these numbers, 50 percent of pregnant women in the country still abuse alcohol." (from IOL)

There are people in the CDA who should be tried for crimes against humanity. To claim that the rise in FAS was unforeseeable at the time the CDA decided that alcohol needed to be its own industry is criminal. The FAS epidemic was totally avoidable and there are now thousands of brain damaged children as a result. These are the actual results of the policy, yet NOT ONE of the members of the CDA has come out and spoken about the epidemic in public.

How is the State going to cater for the victims of the government's drug policy? There are enough of them to form a class, and they have special needs. FAS victims struggle to differentiate between right and wrong. FAS victims tend to be impulsive. FAS victims have a massively reduced mental capacity and will never be "normal contributing citizens". Can the state now rightfully shrug and say it's not their problem?