Alcohol flows in the streets of Western cities and towns, where those whose reason has been set aside by it stagger and fall into sidewalks and gutters, and those who suffer alcohol-induced violence and chronic degeneration are carried into hospital wards and morgues. The alcohol problem is huge. According to a research paper, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, alcohol consumption and illicit use of drugs accounted for a staggering 102,000 deaths in the US during the year 2000. This was higher than the death toll due to microbial agents (75,000), higher than the death toll due to toxic agents (55,000), and far higher than the death toll due to motor vehicle crashes (43,000).

The US has taken many steps to protect its citizens against harmful microbial agents and toxins and has enacted legislation to protect against motor vehicle crashes, but what has been done to protect its citizens from the murderous effects of alcohol and illicit drugs use, which claims more lives than any of these other causes of death? Illicit drugs have been made illegal, but alcohol, which accounts for 85,000 of the 102,000 deaths, is freely available in the US, as it is in all Western countries. This legislative gap contradicts the claim that Western civilization is built upon ‘reason' as a European Renaissance value, which is pertinent, as Western thinkers and politicians often call for Islam to undergo a similar Renaissance. However, Islam has been protecting the minds and bodies of its followers from alcohol's destructive influence for fourteen centuries, without the need to adopt Western culture.

The Western comprehension of ‘reason' is confined majorly to one of its branches, namely the scientific method, which has been amply applied to the subject of alcohol abuse, but, to no avail. There are tens of thousands of scientific articles available in university databases upon the harmful effects of alcohol consumption, and one of these was published in 2010 in  a British medical journal, The Lancet, that looked at two types of harm: self harm and harm to others, and what was striking was that alcohol was ranked as the most harmful of 20 drugs; about 40% more harmful than heroin or crack cocaine for example, and yet these later two are prohibited, while alcohol is permitted in the West. In addition to being the most harmful drug overall, alcohol was also shown to have the distinction of being the only drug that is more harmful to other people (victims) than to the drug users themselves. This makes the free availability of alcohol even more strange, as although the personal freedoms in Western civilization have become a fundamental creedal imperative, this is upon one condition: that while people are free in the West to destroy themselves against all reason, it is generally considered desirable to restrict individual freedom where other people are being harmed against their wishes. So why is alcohol use, with all its ills, so exceptionally tolerated?

It is certainly not because of any doubt about how harmful it is to other innocent people. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta tabulate data for alcohol use, as they do for other harmful human pathologies, and much of these data relate to the link between alcohol and violence against other persons: about 35% of victims of violent crime report that offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of their crime, alcohol use is also associated with 2 out of 3 incidents of intimate partner violence (i.e. 3 million violent crimes, according to the US Department of Justice, being committed against spouses, girl/boyfriends and children),  and alcohol is a leading factor in child maltreatment and neglect cases. The CDC also publishes data collected from the medical professions, and reports that in 2006, there were more than 1.2 million hospital emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking. The human and social cost of alcohol consumption is very high, and so also is the economic cost, which was estimated at $223.5 billion for 2006.

Western reticence about solving the alcohol problem today can be traced back to the failure of the US's National Prohibition Act of 1919, also known as the Volstead Act, which criminalised alcohol. Prohibition was repealed in December 1933 due to massive public opposition to the law, which is an example of a democracy abrogating reason and the public good in favour of the will of the majority. This episode in history has become a symbol of secular democracy prevailing against religious opposition to the right of the people to enjoy what they choose. This right is the right of the majority only, and France is a case in point here. While no one seriously considers the Muslim woman's Hijab to cause death, it is prohibited to be worn in many places in France, while alcohol is always welcomed, even though the European Journal of Public Health reported that in France, alcohol consumption was responsible for the deaths of around 49,000 people in 2009 and is "responsible for 22 percent of deaths between 15 and 34 years of age."

Alcohol dependency has ensnared 140 million people worldwide according to the World Health Organization, and this stems from the highly addictive nature of alcohol, which has profound effects upon the central nervous system at even low doses. Long before blood-alcohol levels become high enough to cause direct harm to the drinker, other more subtle effects lead to the unseating of reason from its normal place, wherein increased self-confidence and sociability become evident along with impaired judgement, and release of normal inhibitions against primitive desires.

Western civilization proclaims itself to be rational, but democratic societies are only as rational as the majority of people want them to be. That being so, the rapes, murders, wife beatings, child abuse, suicides and financial and social ruin shall for now continue in the West. And all of this, under the giddy banner of preserving individual freedom, without regard to preserving individuals themselves.

Dr. Abdullah Robin