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{
    "id": 439887,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/439887/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 272,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Anami",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2773,
        "legal_name": "Lisamula Silverse Anami",
        "slug": "lisamula-silverse-anami"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I would like to support this amendment Bill and thank my brother, hon. Ichung’wah, for bringing it to this House. Essentially, alcohol is a form of beverage, like other beverages. But alcoholism goes beyond it because taking alcohol is highly addictive. It takes people to this condition of alcoholism very easily. Therefore, we need to deal with this issue of alcoholism. I want to agree with those who have alluded to the fact that alcoholism should be treated as a disease. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, indeed, it is a disease because when you go beyond the measure you can take of alcohol, you become alcoholic and start suffering from alcoholism. It has grave effects on the health of individuals. It also has effects on productivity; both economic and human. So for this, as a Government, we must take interest in treatment. First of all, recognizing the levels of danger and then treating it by establishing rehabilitation centers. I want to say that in establishing those rehabilitation centers, we should do it equitably. We should go further and say every county should have, at least, a minimum number of rehabilitation centers. As things are now, we have rehabilitation centers but they do not have the necessary facilities. They are also not equitably distributed across the country. We also need to recognize that there is no community or national entity that does not have its traditional foods and beverages. Some of these alcoholic drinks and beverages are very important to communities for their identity and continuity. They need to take certain levels of alcohol without getting into the dangers of it. So, we need to have capacity building programmes that will help those who are managing these drinks not to use poisonous substances because we have lost many lives. We also need to sensitize administrative entities to make sure that they do not criminalize alcoholics. If you throw a person suffering from alcoholism in cells, you only make the situation worse because he gets depressed. Those people need to be taken to hospital. You cannot take a sick person to a police cell. That person should be taken to hospital. We need to take those people to rehabilitation centers for treatment. The brewers of the alcohol, especially the traditional ones, need to be given accolades because they are safeguarding a heritage that we need to share with the rest of the world. We need to investigate what it is they have that we can adopt and develop so that it is used in modern life. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}