On February 5, 2024, Nigeria’s Nationwide Company for Meals and Drug Administration and Management introduced a ban on alcoholic drinks bought in sachets or bottles lower than 200ml. The company asserts that the ban will, amongst different advantages, shield underage kids from quick access to alcohol. Nevertheless, the Federal Home of Representatives, Nigeria’s decrease chamber of the nationwide meeting, has requested that the ban be suspended pending investigation. Medical sociologist Emeka Dumbili, who has researched points round younger individuals’s use of alcohol and different psychoactive substances, explains why he believes the ban is required and the way it can work.
How dangerous is youth alcohol consumption in Nigeria?
Alcohol consumption is rising amongst younger Nigerians. Though alcohol consumption isn’t new to Nigerian society, traditionally solely adults consumed it as a result of consuming signified that one was an elder. Unwritten guidelines constrained youths from consuming palm wine, which was the one out there alcoholic beverage then. It was believed they have been too immature to deal with the intoxicating results of alcohol. These days, a rising variety of Nigerian adolescents and younger adults devour alcohol. Some even see consuming as modern and people who abstain as quaint.
Research have proven that younger Nigerians are consuming extra alcohol. For instance, research revealed in 2015, 2021 and 2023 discovered a 30%, 34% and 55.8% consuming prevalence amongst youths in Nigeria.
These statistics counsel that there will likely be extra alcohol-related issues reminiscent of mind underdevelopment or harm, alcohol-induced sicknesses, truancy, violence, accidents and demise amongst younger individuals than there was once.
Current research not solely present that youths are consuming, however reveal heavy consuming and drunkenness. These findings additionally echo a World Well being Group report from 2018 which confirmed that the 22.5% prevalence of heavy episodic consuming amongst Nigerians aged 15 to 19 years was among the many highest on the African continent.
How do liquor sachets contribute to the issue?
Analysis has proven that a number of elements are accountable for youth alcohol consumption in Nigeria. Chief amongst them is unregulated alcohol advertising. Alcohol firms in Nigeria more and more use aggressive advertising methods, promoting and gross sales promotions reminiscent of buy-two-get-one-free that make completely different manufacturers of such alcohol readily out there, accessible and inexpensive.
Alcoholic drinks packaged in lower than 200ml plastic bottles and sachets are inexpensive and extensively out there in retail retailers, supermarkets, roadside kiosks and eateries in Nigeria.
They’re additionally bought near major and secondary faculties, the place kids spend time away from their mother and father. That is in opposition to worldwide normal practices.
Sachet alcoholic drinks are additionally straightforward to hold and could be hid from adults due to their small measurement. Younger individuals can simply purchase and drink them.
Kofo Belo-Osagie
One more reason why sachet drinks are an issue is that they’re spirit-based drinks with excessive efficiency. They will include between 40% and 60% alcohol, which is probably extra dangerous.
There’s one more reason too, associated to a different rising downside in Nigeria. Many youths now use several types of natural sachet and plastic bottle alcoholic drinks as aphrodisiacs and intercourse enhancers. A 2020 research discovered that 33.6% of adolescents used sachet alcohol earlier than their final sexual activity.
How efficient are bans of liquor merchandise?
Effectively-coordinated enforcement of the ban can verify the supply of sachet alcoholic drinks. This could cut back accessibility, consumption and associated harms amongst younger individuals.
Uganda has a ban, which has lowered the supply and consumption of sachet alcohol in that nation. Analysis in western international locations has additionally proven that banning alcohol promoting reduces consumption.
For the ban to be efficient, Nigeria ought to be taught from Malawi’s expertise. There, the ban on sachet alcohol failed to provide the specified outcomes because of the lack of coordinated and efficient enforcement.
Do state establishments in Nigeria have capability to implement the ban?
It requires coordinated effort. As a regulatory physique, the Nationwide Company for Meals and Drug Administration and Management could not implement the ban with out the assist of federal regulation enforcement companies just like the police.
What else could be performed to cope with youth consuming?
Coping with the issue of alcohol consumption amongst youths goes past inserting a ban on sachet alcoholic drinks. Many younger individuals in western international locations are shunning alcohol consumption because of the rising consciousness of the issues related to consuming and in addition due to lowered peer stress. The decline in youth consuming within the west can also be as a consequence of efficient coverage implementation on alcohol advertising and the elevated minimal consuming age, particularly in international locations such because the US.
Nigerian companies ought to be taught from the explanation why youths within the west are avoiding alcohol. This may assist when designing and sharing info to teach Nigerian youths and the general public on the hazards of utilizing sachet alcoholic merchandise.
The attention marketing campaign ought to spotlight the short- and long-term optimistic results of the ban. That is essential in order that alcohol producers and entrepreneurs is not going to type alliances that may frustrate the aim.
To disseminate info extensively, social media platforms the place younger individuals are more and more lively ought to be prioritised with out neglecting the standard media. Well being NGOs and different charities must also assist unfold info on the ban’s advantages, together with the concept “well being is wealth”.
Nigeria ought to enhance the minimal buying age from 18 to 21 years and implement such rules to discourage early alcohol initiation and consumption.
To forestall the failure of the sachet alcohol ban, the federal authorities ought to guarantee it’s enforced with out corruption.
