fossgoss

Talkback radio is all over it this week – should the legal age to purchase stay at 18, or go back up to 20? It got me thinking about what a diabolical thing booze is, in terms of social and fiscal cost. Now, come with me on a hypothetical journey. Imagine if every social/recreational inebriant in existence was discovered today. And, that by decree of some quirky law, the Government had to make one – just one – of them legal tomorrow; the rest illegal. So, the minister of inebriants presents The List – including effects and consequences of every one of them. This is then reduced to a shortlist of 6: Heroin, Alcohol, Marijuana, Ecstasy, Valium, Cocaine. And, one of them has to be made legal tomorrow. Well, after studying all the effects and consequences, it sure as hell would not be alcohol. That would be the last choice. (I wonder which one this hypothetical scenario would choose?) My Dad, bless his cotton socks, who had a strong affinity with alcohol had an equally strong view about drugs – one that was passionately espoused after he nailed a couple of flagons and a few whisky chasers. “Legalise ‘em all!” he would thunder. “If they want to take ‘em, let them, who cares?” And, to be fair, legalising all drugs may have some validity – it would eliminate the crime aspect and the drugs themselves, produced professionally, would be cleaner, safer, more predictable. On the downside, we’d have a large number of Heroin addicts to support and more than a few fatal OD’s every year. We could take this further though couldn’t we? Alcohol will likely always be legal. And the other inebriants, apart from marijuana perhaps, will likely always be illegal. Illegal, but available. So, what about this: We take our list of 6 social inebriants and we rotate them annually. So, this year Valium is legal and all the others are illegal. Next year, Heroin is legal, and all the others are illegal. Year after, Alcohol is legal and… etc etc. This way, people will only have a year on any given social inebriant. And before they get totally screwed up on it – it’s gone –and the next on the list comes along. Now, and I am getting to my point here, it won’t take many rotations before society starts dreading the arrival of the ‘Alcohol Year’. With all of the problems it causes – the violence, the crime, the social, the fiscal implications - people would begin to hate this year. The ‘Alcohol Year’ – when compared to the other 5 years – would just be a very, very bad year. The thing is, we legalised the wrong one way back when. And while I love a glass of wine or two – when I look at the death, pain, suffering and financial damage that alcohol causes – I would happily forgo my pinot gris if it would make all those problems go away. Bottom line, I reckon it’s a bloody shame that alcohol was ever discovered.