The Dire Effects of Drinking

The Dire Effects of Drinking

1987 5 May 22-23 The Dire Effects of Drinking (451) A picture published in the Indian Express on August 9th, 1986 shows a number of sad-looking individuals with their feet in plaster. Employees of the Chandigarh Fire Service, they had been ordered while on duty, by Mr. R.K. Ranga, Deputy Commissioner and Director of Fire Services, to jump from the top of a 10 foot high fire engine. In complying with this order, they either broke their feet or were otherwise severely injured.

Mr. Ranga explained that he had ordered them to jump in order to test their physical fitness. The explanation that the firemen gave was that when Mr. Ranga gave this order, he was acting under the influence of alcohol.

It is an accepted fact that drunkenness and crime are closely interrelated. Drinking causes such a degeneration of the mind that one’s moral sense remains in abeyance, and there are few improprieties that one stops short of. It has been statistically proved that most road accidents occur due to drinking.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984) has this to say:

“A special offence related to drinking is alcohol-impaired driving of motor vehicles and the resulting high rate of accidents, with fatalities, personal injuries, and property damage. Alcohol, for example, is involved in about one-third of the more than 50,000 annual road traffic fatalities in the United States, in possibly 500,000 injuries to persons, and in more than 1,000,000,000 worth of property damage (1/449).”

On November 6, 1985, The Times of India published a report entitled, ‘Drink Before Crime.’ This report underlined the intimate relationship between crime and the consumption of alcohol:

“More than half of the jail inmates convicted of violent crimes had been drinking before committing offences, says an official report. In a grim study of alcohol’s role in fueling crimes, a report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice showed that, ‘altogether, 54 per cent of 32,122 people convicted of violent crimes had been drinking’ reports A.P.”

It is an indisputable fact that excessive drinking is one of the greatest causes of evil today, for it paralyzes the human capacity to think and feel. It suppresses the voice of conscience which point to what is right and what is wrong, warning man of the consequences of his deeds. What should be the greatest deterrents to the committing of crimes – a sense of shame, fear of consequences, love of one’s fellow-men–are stifled by the state of intoxication which leaves man senseless and without scruples.

That is why, in all revealed scriptures, alcohol is declared unlawful. Even a small quantity of it, which might appear to be harmless, is prohibited, so that man should adopt an attitude of total disgust towards it and treat it as the abomination that it is.