EVERY now and then reports appear in the newspapers that people die after consuming home-made liquor. The latest such incident was reported on the eve of Eidul Azha.

This clearly proves that the demand for alcoholic drinks in society is so great that, while the well-to-do people can quench their thirst by costly imported alcohol, the poor resort to cheap liquor prepared by producers in their illegal distilleries which is at times poisonous. As a result, precious lives are lost at the altar of prohibition.

Let us be realistic. No society can force people not to take alcoholic drinks though it can force them to purchase whatever is offered in the clandestine market.

Prohibition was enforced in Pakistan in 1977. The net result of this policy has been that huge revenue accruing as excise duty is lost to the state and the smuggling of foreign liquor and local manufacture of illicit alcohol have become the norm of the day.

Various state agencies have estimated from time to time that alcoholic consumption has not only not ended or even reduced but actually increased manifold since 1977.

I therefore suggest, that the policy of prohibition be discarded in favour of a wet policy controlled by licences.

Let us be realistic and realise that we cannot enforce prohibition just as the mighty USA failed in the 1920s.

Salahuddin Mirza
Karachi

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THIS Eid 32 people lost their lives after drinking toxic liquor. This happens often in Pakistan, especially during festivals.

I think it is time to re-visit the prohibition laws and find out what has the state achieved except a thriving black market for alcohol that is benefiting only the many in the corridors of power and the officials whose interests lie in looking the other way to let this black market thrive. The only losers are the poor who cannot afford the imported alcohol and make do with toxic liquor that cause countless deaths each year.

It is time people come out of the hypocrisy cycle that those who can afford it can have all the imported liquor they can purchase, while the less fortunate have to make do with a sip of death.

Masood Khan
Saudi Arabia

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2014