A UWI Professor thinks So.
UWI professor: Alcohol policy needed...linked to increased cancer risk.TRINIDAD and Tobago must stop “hiding” from open dialogue and national policies about alcohol’s negative impacts on the population, especially as it continues to emerge as potentially carcinogenic.
The challenge was thrown out on Thursday by Prof Rohan Maharaj at his professorial inaugural lecture, “Curing Curiosity: 25 years of Family and Community Health Research”, where he looked at alcohol’s place in local society and its effects on individuals and homes.
Speaking from The University of the West Indies’ (The UWI) Teaching and Learning Complex at the St Augustine campus, Maharaj was critical of T&T’s management of the marketing of alcohol, and made calls for better to be done.
He even called out The UWI, noting the past presence of a bar on campus and promotions at the time which would target students, including young women.
Maharaj, who is set to retire this year, stated that he may take up activism and target alcohol.
Maharaj was passionate that the public be better educated about the health impacts of alcohol consumption, recalling that the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated in 2022 that “no amount was safe” and alcohol was being directly linked to increased cancer risks.
Maharaj said alcohol’s carcinogenic links were “in a straight line” and not “curved”, with supporting research going on 15 to 20 years old.
He said T&T may not want to have the conversation and he might be “stepping on some toes”, noting cultural attachment to alcohol and arguments that it contributes to the national economy.
However, the repercussions to health were also a financial cost, both to the person, their home, work and in healthcare, Maharaj said.
Based on data from several studies by himself and his peers and a pilot study of 1,800 homes, Maharaj advanced that some $650 million was being spent annually on added expenses related to alcohol use in homes and by individuals.
He said there were usually more costs in a home where alcohol was being consumed above a certain level, such as “binge drinking”, including greater levels of illness, family, work and relationship issues and even attracted costs, such as traffic tickets.
Maharaj, who cited a number of studies from The UWI, said of about 400,000 households, about 66% used alcohol.
Young people who were exposed early to alcohol had a greater tendency to become drinkers and women were being impacted by alcohol use as well.
Maharaj expressed alarm on several occasions at T&T’s attitude towards alcohol and said based on research, some 87.1% of homes had a bar within walking distance.
He said many people surveyed either had no problem with this or didn’t care, but 80% supported better labelling, increased breathalyser patrols, more public education, and were willing to pay more taxes on alcohol.
Ladies freeMaharaj recalled that The UWI’s bar at one time would advertise events at which a “ladies free” policy would apply to certain hours, during which women could drink for free.
He recalled his own emotions about his daughter at the time and that he was “incensed” and found it “inappropriate”, wondering where were the management policies on alcohol.
Maharaj said T&T had a 300-year history with alcohol and looked at its role in recreation, listing annual festivities such as Carnival and the Tobago Great Race, which were alcohol-heavy activities.
Referring to T&T’s party culture, he said: “Just as you think its getting better, it starts all over again.”
Maharaj also remembered that this country, decades ago, had in place a law that required all bars to be closed on Thursdays. He said this was tied to the habits of daily and weekly-paid workers, who would be prevented from going to the bars and would be able to take money home to their wives.
Today, “rum shops are any day, anytime”, Maharaj said, joking that the Thursday statute on bars should be brought back.
Maharaj expressed concern that he would overstep at The UWI in his comments, but also noted that “advocacy and social justice are campus tradition”.
Referring to a need for better policies on alcohol in the English-speaking Caribbean, Maharaj said there were “huge gaps” in the way T&T handled the marketing and labelling of alcohol.
Maharaj said other countries were taking steps to protect their populations, while he was “not getting a sense that our institutions are educating the population enough”.
He said from 2026, Ireland will implement a policy where every drink is sold with a warning that alcohol can cause cancer.
Maharaj said while these were issues only recently understood to be true about alcohol, “are we asking the population to ask itself why” about its alcohol consumption.
He said some people taking part in past surveys said they didn’t feel that advertising about alcohol affected them; however this was “because it is so subtle”.
But billions of dollars were being spent in advertising and there was an impact on the population, he said.
Maharaj complained of having presented on the impact of alcohol on the region and T&T, including before regional ministers of health in Washington in 2014.
He said Caricom had then vowed to address issues such as labelling and marketing of alcohol—but that since then, nothing had happened.
“My next step is becoming an activist, when I retire,” Maharaj said, adding that he has been unable to accomplish getting some policy on alcohol by “starting from the top”.
Maharaj later stated that “prohibition is not the answer”, instead calling for “adult dialogue” between stakeholders and public education to manage alcohol sale and consumption.
He stressed that the associated increased risks of cancer with alcohol consumption “a straight line and not a J curve” so that “as alcohol goes up, cancer risk goes up”.
Maharaj said when it come to alcohol’s carcinogenic link, “even the (Trinidad and Tobago) Cancer Society would say they leave it up to the individual”.
Maharaj asserted that any economic argument for alcohol “doesn’t stand to scrutiny” as the “harms and costs outweigh the tax and duties”.
When it comes to alcohol, Maharaj said “we need to have that discussion” and “there is no hiding from it”.
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