Vol.8 No.6

Is Alcohol Abuse Being Ignored?

It’s easy to forget that alcohol is a drug as dangerous as cocaine, marijuana, or heroin. Because it enjoys a respectable reputation in most societies, we forget that it is a deadly and serious substance masking as an innocent beverage.

World-wide, intoxication from alcohol is the number one cause of the spread of AIDS. The World Health Organization regards alcohol abuse as “one of the most serious public health problems in the world.”

While most people who use alcohol escape serious problems, for a substantial portion of the global population it is an on-going tragedy.

In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, alcohol is ravaging the post-communist people. In Lithuania, 80% of the people are addicted to alcohol and as a result are trapped in a cycle of poverty and drunkenness. Russians consume more alcohol per-capita than any other people. The poor in many cultures drink alcohol to alleviate hunger, cold, and despair. World Vision, December 1996-January 1997.

LG comments: Christians need to speak clearly and forcibly against this evil. They also can minister to the victims of alcohol abuse through the gospel’s power to forgive and cleanse.

Vol.10 No.5

Air Rage

First there was road rage, now there’s “air rage”—airplane passengers getting drunk and often attacking passengers or crew members. In August 1998 a drunk Danny Walters kicked a passenger in the head, fondled a flight attendant, and threatened the copilot with a knife, forcing an emergency landing. At least one-quarter of all crew interference incidents are alcohol related, according to the Air Transport Association. If trade organizations and passenger advocacy groups really cared about the welfare of passengers, they would push as hard for an alcohol ban as they did for a smoking ban.

A ban on alcohol would not be such a bad thing, yet airlines are not in favor of it because they make too much money selling alcohol. Also, travelers are not likely to agree, since some think it violates their human rights to be denied alcohol on a plane. A plane, however, is not a bar, and it is no more one’s constitutional right to drink on a plane as it is to smoke. abcNews.com, abcnews.go.com/sections/travel/Crabby/alcohol.html