ALCOHOL

The consumption of alcohol is such a normal part of Western culture today that its prohibition anywhere appears to be extreme and unreasonable. The medical profession has in recent times stated that half-a-glass of wine with meals helps with digestion and it lowers blood pressure.

The harm in alcohol far outweighs these benefits. When one considers on one hand the number of lives lost as a result of drunk driving, the number of violent and heinous crimes committed in states of intoxication, and people who die as a result of alcoholism, (23) the little benefit in alcohol becomes insignificant. Alcohol is involved in 40% (32) 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. (33)Based on published studies, Roizen summarized the percentages of violent offenders who were drinking at the time of the offense as follows: up to 86% of homicide offenders, 60% of sexual offenders, and up to 57% of men involved in marital violence. Pernanen found that 42% of violent crimes reported to the police involved alcohol, while51% of the victims (31) Time Magazine, 22/4/1975, stated that after heart disease and cancer, alcoholism was the country's biggest health problem. Most alcohol related deaths are caused bycirrhosis of the liver believed their assailants had been drinking. (34)The social and economic costs of alcoholism and heavy drinking are essentially incalculable. An estimate of $2,000,000,000 as the cost of health and welfare services provided to alcoholics and their families in the United States alone suggests the measure of effects worldwide... Crude projections of the annual costs of alcoholism to the national economy of the United States range from $7,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000.35

"In half of all murders in the USA, either the killer or the victim or both have been drinking."³⁶ Allah recognized that there is some good in alcohol when it was prohibited 1,400 years ago saying, ^u44 - al-_5E4 "They ask you about intoxicants and gambling. Say: There is great harm in both and benefit to people. However, the harm in them is greater than the benefit"(2:219).

Those who are involved in the alcohol industry, from the farmer to the waitress in the bar all benefit economically. So do those involved in the heroin and cocaine industry, however, human civilization recognizes the greater harm and prohibits its production, sale and consumption. Alcohol is an addictive drug in the same category as heroin and cocaine. "Government efforts to control alcoholic beverages go back as far as recorded history. The Code of Hammurabi included regulations for the sale and consumption of alcohol. That the laws often failed to produce the desired effects - temperance and good public order and perhaps revenue exceeding the social costs of excess - is inferred from the frequent legislative attempts at total prohibition in numerous lands throughout history:37

The most recent national effort was in the United States during the Prohibition Era (1920 to 1933) in which the production and sale of alcohol was banned. In 1917 the resolution for submission of the Prohibition amendment received the necessary two-thirds vote in Congress; the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on Jan. 29, 1919 and went into effect a year later. Even after the law's repeal in Dec. 5, 1933 (38)a few states continued statewide prohibition up until 1966. Actually, the first state prohibition law was passed in Maine in1846.39

The Prophet referred to alcohol/intoxicants as being the root of corruption.  Alcohol lowers inhibitions and makes humans feel comfortable doing crimes that they would be shy to commit while sober. A quiet shy person commonly becomes loud and boisterous under the influence of alcohol. News reports about a father raping his 5-year-old daughter usually mention that he was intoxicated. Consequently, it is the breeding ground for crime and corruption.

The argument of moderate drinkers that they are able to control their intake and that they do not suffer from the ill effects of intoxication is not relevant to its prohibition. The Sharia considers the norm and not the exceptions. Most people who drink get intoxicated at some time or another. All it takes is one occasion for harm to occur. Those who never get dunk are rare. Furthermore, a law which states that only those who were moderate drinkers would be allowed to drink would obviously be ineffective.

The question of why alcohol is prohibited in this life but permitted in paradise is sometimes raised. It should be noted that the wine of paradise is completely different from the wine of this world. All of the negative effects are removed and all of the good is enhanced beyond human comprehension. Consequently, the Prophet said that what paradise contains no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard or has it crossed the mind of anyone.⁴¹ Rivers of milk and honey in paradise

are described similarly. Milk goes bad and honey can rot in this life, but in paradise they remain pure and taste in a way inconceivable to human beings. These examples are given by God to give confidence to those who have abstained from the forbidden pleasures of this world. They are assured that they have missed nothing. The wine of the next world is so much better than this world's best wine that it makes the wine of this world seem completely useless.

32 Alcohol: Decisions on Top, American College Health Association, 1996.
33 The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 13, p. 216.
34 Alcohol Alert, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, No. 38, October 1997.
³⁵ Ibid.
36 Alcohol and Other Drugs: Risky Business, American College Health Association, 1996.
37 The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 13, p. 216.
38 Prohibition brought into being a new kind of criminal - the bootlegger. The career of Al Capone was a dramatic instance of the development of bootlegging on a large scale. His annual earnings were estimated at $60,000,000. The rise of the bootlegging gangs led to a succession of gang wars and murders.
³⁹The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 9, p. 723.