A Toast To Your Health

New Delhi: May 18, 2008
Just as 70 per cent of all shampoo sold in India is in sachets, I’ll bet my bottom dollar that 70 per cent (or more) of all liquor sold in India comes in ‘quarters’: 180ml bottles, or 3 large pegs.

Now, the quarter costs as much as a single bottle of beer.

So no one buys beer. They all buy quarters of hard liquor.

I watched the crowd of poor people outside a government booze shop in South Delhi – and each of them emerged with a little quarter.

Yet, beer is a healthy drink. In the old days, the water was unsafe – and beer was the only safe drink available to the poor in Europe.

Adam Smith himself famously said that he got his lunch from the ‘butcher, baker and brewer’ – which implies that a glass or two of the local brew accompanied every lunch.

Why is beer so expensive here? Why do poor people consume hard liquor?

The answer: taxation. The taxes on beer are designed to encourage the consumption of hard liquor.

The government is destroying public health.

The government is in the pay of the hard liquor mafia.

Thus, the protestations of the health minister alleging that he is being ‘targeted by the liquor industry’ are fiction.

As in every other instance, even in the case of alcohol, the government’s policies are perverse.

The government is actively promoting liver disease.

Beer should be tax-free and license-free.

Let a million micro-breweries blossom, serving draught beer on tap to all comers.

Let there be beer pubs on every street.

And I will raise a drink to everyone’s health.

Cheers!

A great Irish toast goes:

A long life – and a merry one,
A quick death – and an easy one,
A pretty girl – and an honest one,
And a cold beer – and another one!

To your health, dudes!