EDITED: DE-DRUG RSA AND SAVE THE ECONOMY … WHY NOT?
By Douglas Schorr
The ANC and the Booze Industry are looking down
on Mandela’s rainbow baby, beaten and battling to breathe. They arrange
themselves for a photo-shoot, and then mutter to the press, “it’s sad, very
sad. But hang on, is she as bad as the kids over the road?”
South Africa has monster-sized alcohol
problems. It’s time to get real and yet grown men and women still piddle on
about a good age for drinking.
The country has a ‘drink-the problem-away’
and ‘only-drink-makes-it-fun’ culture. Neither works for more than a few hours,
yet getting stoned is practiced by the Upper Classes and No Class alike. Guilt,
pain, frustration, loneliness, failure … drink them all away, or enjoy the
cricket by blowing your mind for a day or weekend.
Why it happens and why it continues is
awfully easy to answer – money.
The Big Business
Every born-into-Capitalism economist, South
African politician and business-person can easily explain that alcohol is a
dream model, and vital to GDP. It’s a product that pays for itself, and then
adds on big extras by way of the medical industry – accidents, disease,
violence, promiscuity, all yield enormous profits. [1]
The government talks of actual losses[2]
and the liquor industry argues potential turnover lost[3]
as if GDP growth determines the happiness of the people or the health of the
country. There can be no future
happiness and health either: South African foetal alcohol syndrome incidence is
shocking[4].
Many alcohol/related deaths ago, in October
2016, the then Trade and Industry Minister, Mr Davies, said alcohol had a “harmful
effect (on) individuals and communities as a whole”[5].
What an understatement. The emotional and behavioural damage never stops, the
cost is incalculable.
Missing is that particular spirit called
Community (or Ubuntu). It lies beyond money and it’s only objective is caring for
human life AND the environment as one interdependent entity. That’s good
government. Big Business is about self, maximising profit no matter the cost to
humanity, and the environment. It too has a single goal: meeting shareholder
expectations after, of course, executive remuneration.
Using tax monies the South African government
is expected to clean up after Big Business – from polluted rivers to drunken
brawl broken heads.
The Distell Group’s shareholders’ dividend
improved from 123c per share in 2005 to 346c in 2015[6]. The share tripled from 2008 to 2017 (Google
Finance). The CEO’s remuneration is over R10 million a year[7].
The Director General of Health’s salary, the ministry very involved in the darker
side of alcohol’s life-cycle (a vastly bigger job than making gin) is about R2
million[8][9].
South Africa’s GDP has risen from US$3445
in 1994 to US$5284 in 2016, but far from ushering in overall improvement in
health or well-being the rising white collar crime, the violence, small
business failure rate, un- and underemployment, the flight of skills and Rand
rate signposts an unhappy place. To top it all consider the alcohol road record;
RSA “… had the highest number of drunk driving incidents at 58%” in the world …
(and the GDP growth champion) China the least on 4%”[10].
The Real Cost
Alcohol use produces outcomes, and the
society-negative consequences of those outcomes need to be realised. At present
only the profits of private companies that arise out of alcohol chaos are acknowledged.
The government needs to step around the current
petty debate, stop being nanny to citizens and
start behaving like the business it should itself be. It needs to be agreed
that the alcohol industry’s huge profits are from now on stated after all costs are recognised.
A simple single example … if a motor
accident is found to have been caused to any degree by alcohol the state must be
able to recover proportionately the last item in cost from the fireman’s
overtime to the replacement of any concrete divot and all hospital costs from
the liquor provider. And insurers should be considered involved: Forget
exclusions. If a car (or health) policy is sold to a drinker and something goes
wrong they join in the civil and criminal dock along with the alcohol industry.
Knowing your customer is a business technique to reduce the risk of business –
it’s time to apply it.
As much as the criminal defence of being
“under the influence” must be tightened[11],
the family of a drunk supplied must be enabled to sue alcohol companies for
supplying. And for continuing to supply there must be a criminal charge. The industry
knows the statistics. They must bear the costs of all who turn out to be
problematic; the alcoholic and heavy (for whatever reason) drinker.
In South Africa “about 6•3% of
disability-adjusted life-years lost are attributable to alcohol, and about 130
deaths are from alcohol-related causes every day”[12].
Family trauma and nation destruction – incalculable - is over and above those
horror figures.
Those harmed, government and citizen, must
be able to sue and they must start now. That includes suing parents for being negligent,
but it is also time to reel in the rope the liquor industry has allowed
itself.
Responsibility Time
Until recently “… the idea that a company
could be a criminal was alien to American law. The prevailing assumption was … that
corporations had neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be condemned, and
thus were incapable of being “guilty”[13].
Wonderfully, things have changed.
The indignant “I/my business has rights” needs
to be tempered with an equal dose of “but you (and company) have duties and
responsibilities too”. During Obama’s term fines on companies operating in the
US amounted to (on annual average) US$17 billion (R200 billion) a year and that
money went into public coffers[14].
As part of their business risk banks accept
fines for money laundering,[15]
etc. Medicine manufacturers, doctors and illegal crack dealers are held
responsible for the outcomes of their service and resultant customer behaviour.
The alcohol industry must join the club. The right to sell alcohol must be
matched with the duty to pick up costs. If you want a life in RSA, agree to get
tough on alcohol consequences.
South Africans are the liquor industry’s
best advertisement. If booze accounts for 40% of violent crime,[16]
how much more political anger and racial discord does it generate at the very
moment the battle for economic equality should be the goal?
If the booze industry is held accountable,
the potential loss of jobs will be countered by real economic stimulation … exactly
what the legal-drug industry is crowing the country needs. The change will be in the money flow. From court case or
settlement into the public pocket, monies recovered will be spent … in South Africa. After all, communities are the real
shareholders of South Africa. Booze company execs earning exorbitant salaries
without end user responsibility and guilt free dividends must end.
Edited by Milton Schorr
[1]
www.iflscience.com/editors.../whats-most-dangerous-drug-world-according-science
[2] Example “… costs associated with harmful alcohol use in South
Africa have been estimated at between R245 933 – 280 687 billion” … See
https://www.phasa.org.za/ban-alcohol-advertising-south-africa.
[3] … “silencing alcohol advertising will cost the out-of-home, radio,
television and print media more than R1.9 billion a year.” … See https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/228829
[4] https://theconversation.com/south-africa-fails-to-tackle-its-high-foetal-alcohol-syndrome-rate
[5] https://www.fin24.com/Economy/will-21-be-the-new-legal-drinking-age-in-sa-20161003
[6] https://www.distell.co.za/investor-centre/dividend-history/
[7] https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=249326908&privcapId=875709
Reuters shows 22 senior people and Google Finance reports a net profit margin
of over 9% AFTER paying that bunch … to make legal drugs!
[8] A more involved story
that needs written up by an analyst is the relationships developing between
life-dissolving and life giving business units in South Africa. It seems to me
Remgro for example owns Distel and Mediclinic International (see http://www.4-traders.com/REMGRO-LIMITED-1413405/company/ & http://www.4-traders.com/DISTELL-GROUP-LIMITED-1413363/company/) At monopoly level that makes good strategic
business sense. That 4-traders notes the Public Investment Corp. Ltd owns 28%
of Distell is sad. 51% would make sense.
[9] https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/union-cries-foul-as-dgs-score-in-salary-hikes-1678235
[10] See https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Local/Greytown-Gazette/sa-worst-in-the-world-for-drunk-driving-20170704
[11] Surely if a person deliberately has a drink or three intentional
disregard thereafter can be assumed?
[12] www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60954-5/abstract
… by C Parry 2014
[13] https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21614138-companies-must-be-punished-when-they-do-wrong-legal-system-has-become-extortion
[14] https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/02/13/corporate-criminals-unleashed-federal-penalties-imposed-largest-corps-plunged-trumps-first-year/?
[15] http://www.douglasschorr.com/2015/07/rugby-drugs-hsbc.html
[16] http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/alcohol/international-statistics.html
