ANDRE LYDER,
Sir, - The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the Minister for Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, have welcomed Diageo (the parent company of Guinness) as the latest sponsor of the joint bid by the Republic of Ireland and Scotland to host the 2008 European Championship (The Irish Times, July 25th).
Their effusive endorsement of the Diageo's sponsorship comes little more than a month after the publication of the interim report of the Strategic Task Force on Alcohol, which contained startling facts on the problems caused by alcohol abuse. It revealed that alcohol consumption per capita in Ireland has increased by an extraordinary 41 per cent in the 10 years between 1983 and 1999. During the same period, decreases in alcohol consumption were recorded in 10 EU member-states, while consumption figures were static in three others.
In receiving the interim report, the Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin, expressed his concern at the problem of alcohol abuse in Irish society, stating that it must be addressed and faced up to.
Given the conclusions of the Government's own task force, the willingness of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Sport and Tourism to extend an unqualified welcome to the sponsorship of a major drink company of the bid to co-host the European Championships is, to put it mildly, extremely difficult to understand.
Do they realise the drinks industry is only too keen to associate its products with sport and that its linking of alcohol with sporting prowess, fitness and success is for one purpose only - the achievement of greater sales and bigger profits?
When a drinks company receives the endorsement of the Taoiseach and a senior Minister, what hope can there be for the National Alcohol Strategy? - Yours, etc.,
Dr MICHAEL LOFTUS, Main Street, Crossmolina, Co Mayo.
... ... * ... * ... * ... ...
Sir, -Paul Bowler (July 26th) asserts that "for a crime to take place there must be a victim" and creates the impression that the illegality of drugs is somehow uniquely out of step with this principle. This is far from the case.
You are not permitted, to give but one example, to have a semi-automatic rifle under your bed, whatever comfort it may provide you and irrespective of whether anyone has been on the receiving end of it or not. Mr Bowler may argue, of course, that you have every right to possess firearms if they are causing no harm to anyone. Society, however, has deemed it to be of greater social benefit not to have such things in general circulation.
More importantly, however, Mr Bowler's argument that drug abuse harms only the user is not only unsustainable but astonishing. There are not many parents who have watched their children descend into heroin addiction, or buried them as a result, who would claim to have emerged unscathed from the experience. Many have told me it destroyed their lives.
Similarly, there are not many young people who grew up in a household with addicted siblings, or indeed parents, who would not feel negatively affected. And what of the cost of treatment, rehabilitation, social welfare payments to those unable to hold down jobs? Surely this ultimately comes out of the pockets of others.
Mr Bowler may choose to argue that the problem with all this is not the use of heroin but the irresponsible use, for, after all, "with freedom comes responsibility". But, for some strange reason, one does not encounter many people who manage to use highly addictive substances responsibly. Decades of freedom to use nicotine legally resulted only in the cancer wards being filled.
Personal freedom arguments are always interesting and important. Any society, however, which deems itself civilised will retain the right to curtail personal freedoms to some degree in the interest of the common good. It seems to me that those who wish to see all drugs legalised will have to make a coherent argument based on the benefit to society. I have yet to hear it. - Yours, etc.,
ANDRE LYDER, Chatsworth, Ontario, Canada.