Freedom to choose

You have a right to vote at 18 and decide the government that would run the state & the country.

You have a right to join the Army, Navy, Air-force or IPS at 18 and pledge your life to the country.

You have the right to get married at the age of 18/21 (girl/boy) & start a family.

But you do not have the freedom to drink alcohol till you are 25.

The government of Maharashtra recently proposed a policy to raise the drinking age from 21 to 25 citing some ridiculous reasons like maturity. It means that you are mature enough at 18 to decide a government or decide to lay your life for the country but not mature enough to drink responsibly.

At the outset let me be very clear that I do not support alcoholism, it is a personal choice, but I believe that choice to should be of the individual and not of the government. 

The thought behind the government’s de-addiction campaign is Nobel but the path taken to reach the goal is totally incorrect. Instead the government should think of ways to promote responsible drinking. Couple of years back the state government decided to crack down on errant drivers who drink & drive, simultaneously it also ran many publicity campaigns on the same subject. The drive has been very successful and the streets have become much safer since. 

But by imposing such age related barriers the government is not going to succeed rather it will lead to more corrupt practices. Have a look at Gujarat, our only dry state, ya right, the state has been under prohibition since long, but it also has witnessed alarmingly high number of deaths due to consumption of adulterated alcohol. 

The point of the matter is, prohibition in Gujarat has given rise to black marketing of hooch & moonshine (illegal manufacturing of alcohol) & that is having an adverse effect on the health of its population. Some say that if one knows the right place to go & ask, they can get such a wide choice of brands that would shame even some well stocked bars in metros.  So we see imposing restrictions doesn’t always work the way it is supposed to.

 

Recently Bollywood actor Imran Khan filed a PIL against this decision, there has been a lot of support generated for this initiative, not because everybody wants a free license to drink but because such restrictions are not in the right interest of democracy.

I therefore strongly feel that imposing absurd restrictions is not the solution, rather an individual should be given the freedom to make a responsible choice.