Why everyone's missed the point about highway liquor ban

The highway liquor ban ordered by the Supreme Court has brought the subject of alcohol into public discourse. The debate, however, has been hijacked by vested interests and the narrative is narrowly focused on impact of the court order on hospitality industry concentrated in urban centres like Gurugram. Some are also talking of the order as infringement of personal freedom to drink.

Libertarians are shouting that “bans don’t work” as if the court has imposed nationwide prohibition. Industry is worried about loss of business while politicians are concerned with loss of excise revenue if liquor sales indeed drop. In such a skewed debate, factors like road safety, drunken driving and alcohol use disorders (AUD) have all been made to appear trivial.

Going by the alacrity with which government agencies — in tandem with liquor trade — are working overtime to invent ingenious ways to circumvent the court order, it will soon be "business as usual".

Those crying hoarse over the court order conveniently overlook the fact that alcohol is a highly regulated substance the world over including oft-cited free market economies like America. There are licensing norms, strict policies about location of liquor vends, curbs on alcohol advertising, laws about legal age of drinking and punitive regulations to check drunken driving.

On the other hand in India, alcohol is a matter solely in the domain of central and excise departments. Regulations on drunken driving are lax. Alcohol advertising is banned but the government turns a blind eye to surrogate advertising. Central and state health ministries are too scared to touch a "revenue earner" like alcohol, despite the fact that India is signatory to various declarations and strategies of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on alcohol.

The world body considers harmful drinking a major risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders, cardiovascular diseases, cirrhosis of the liver and various cancers. WHO’s global strategy for alcohol control has recommended countries to establish and enforce systems to regulate production, wholesaling and serving of alcoholic beverages with reasonable limitations on distribution including regulation of retail sales in certain places.

India needs a holistic national policy framework covering all aspects of alcohol — production, retailing, pricing, marketing and advertising, taxation, health impacts, drunken driving, money spent to address to burden of diseases linked to alcohol use, monitoring and surveillance, de-addiction, illicit trade and so on.

Since such a framework would impinge upon a number of ministries and also all the states, a national body like the NITI Aayog must take the lead in developing it rather than leaving it to any single ministry. Such a policy could serve as an umbrella framework to central ministries concerned and states to take appropriate action in the form of legislation and regulation.

By taking such an initiative, the government would only be fulfiling its Constitutional obligation as enshrined in Article 47 which states that “the state shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the use except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health."

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Also read: Highway liquor ban: Drunk driving is an excuse, real problem is government