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It could well be said that alcohol employs Nacada


Deep-seated issues is a phrase that like illegal brew in the country side, is often peddled around with such casualty you’d think its cocaine during the Vietnam War.

Yet its context is almost always taken lightly.

But of late this has come to bear unprecedented profundity. Since beer was first bottled in the mid 1500s it has faced more contention than the land under the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Now Kenya’s sole advocate of the ‘Women’s war of 1873’ is not just content with dictating at what times you can purse your lips and savour a drink, but wishes to steamroller into your house and cars unannounced and carry on-the-spot searches.

Kenyans should stop paying lip service to this stripping down of universal rights to privacy. Such intolerable searches and seizures by the police, history has shown, lead to increased criminal activity rather than a drop.

A discussion needs to be had on whether the purported protection of citizens from alcohol abuse is indeed more urgent a social issue than the protection of individual freedom that the country has achieved in its 50 years of existence.

Furthermore, such prohibitive legislations will deprive citizens of jobs and the Treasury of much needed revenue.

Alcohol single-handedly cantilevers the Kenyan economy. Aside being one of the top revenue generating products, it is perhaps one of the largest employers.

Yardstick

From brewers to bar owners; transporters and distributors; waiters; bouncers; taxis; late night matatus and even the twilight ladies, it could well be said facetiously that alcohol employs the National Campaign Against Drugs Agency (Nacada).

One man’s emotional roller coaster should never be the yardstick on how a whole nation should be allowed to make merry.