Alcohol_Prohibition

| Alcohol Prohibition | Final Draft For The Research paper | | Submitted By: Mohammed AlSaggaf ID:21424 | 12/23/2008 | | Abstract Alcohol prohibition research paper is an argument paper to support banning alcohol beverages around the world. I wrote an introduction in the beginning talk about the definition and the types of alcohol beverages. Also, it includes some examples of countries that tried to ban alcohol beverages. After that the thesis statement comes. In the thesis statement, I recommend to ban alcohol because it guide to many negative things which are written in the body of the research paper. In the first body paragraph, I said that alcohol guide to many negative health effects. It also talks about the BAC. In the second body paragraph, I said that drinking alcohol can lead to drunk-accident. Then, I gave some statistics about drunk-accident. After that, I wrote about my friend’s story. In the third body paragraph, I said that alcohol can lead us to be alcoholism. Then, I wrote about the dangers of being alcoholism. After that I recommend AA for helping alcoholism to get back their normal life. In the fourth body paragraph, I said alcohol may lead to unplanned sexual encounters. Then, I gave some statistics about this situation. After that, I gave an example that I have faced in my own life. In the conclusion, I wrote a brief summery for the paper and after that I recommend a way to effectively prohibit alcohol. Research Paper Outline Th. Statement: countries around the world should applied because consuming alcohol can guiding to negative health effects, cause many drunk car accidents, lead people to be alcoholism and lead to unplanned sexual encounters. 1) Topic Sentence 1: the health effect is the first reason why we should ban alcohol. * Alcohol can cause death for its drinker if he/she got .50 in the BAC. This percent equal to 25 glasses of beer.(Body about BAC and its influence) * Heavy drinkers damage to various brain disorder and cancers of the mouth and esophagus. * It affects pregnant women by harming their children. * Drinking too much alcohol cause the person who drink to gain too much calories because alcohol has many calories. 2) Topic Sentence 2: In addition to affecting the drinker’s health, alcohol can cause many car accidents. * When people drink, they can not control themselves, and by so they can not control the vehicle they are driving, so they damage others. * % of deaths happened in US in 2003 because of drunk accidents. * How policy maker’s deal with this situation and does their way work'(Body) 3) Topic Sentence 3: when a person used to be drunk, he/she may became alcoholic which has many negative effects. * Being alcoholics can cause you to loss your job and even your friends and family. * Alcoholics spend all of their days for just drinking and without doing anything that can improve their skills and so improve their countries. * Find an Example. * The effect AA in alcoholic and how do they deal with their patients(Body about AA) 4) Topic Sentence 4: Being drunk lead you to unplanned sexual encounters * Date rape * Street fights * Bad relationship with others * As an example, when I wad in a club in Canada, people from the club I am in got drunk and started to push fight others for no reason until they got in fight with other drunk people. That fight caused many injuries, but thanks god for there were no deaths. That was just a small fight; try to imagine if there is a big fight what could happen. 5) Conclusion: First, drinking alcohol is the reason behind many negative health effects. Causing huge numbers of car accidents is the second problem that these countries avoid. Third, alcohol leads people to be alcoholism. Finally, alcohol leads to many unplanned crimes Alcohol Prohibition Introduction: “There are many types of alcohol, Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol is the one found in alcoholic beverages. It is produced by fermentation. Yeast is added to sugars to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide” as (Dudley, 2006) measured. (Dudley, 2006) Also measured that” there are two general types of alcohol beverages. Fermented drinks, such as beer and wine, contain 5 to 20 percent alcohol. Distilled drinks, such as brandy, rum, gin, and vodka contain 12 to 55 percent alcohol”. According to (Fraser, 2006) “alcoholic beverages, which have been part of human civilization for thousands of years, are pervasive in today’s society. An estimated two-thirds of American adults drink alcohol to some extent. More than $ 116 billion was spent in the United States on alcoholic beverages in 1999” which is for sure is a very huge number of money spent in such beverages. These $ 116 billion spent in alcohol could have used to provide a better standard of living for USA citizens and to provide a better economy for the country. Since decades ago, whether to keep consuming alcohol or not was a debatable thing for policy makers. Recently, alcohol researchers have found many negative affects that alcohol can cause. Thus, many countries through out the history have tried to ban consuming alcohol beverages. According to (Hakim, 1995), some of these countries tried to ban alcohol, but they failed to prohibit it, such as U.S from 1920 to 1932, Norway from 1916 to 1927, Iceland from 1915 to 1922 and Russia from 1914 to 1925. On the other hand, some countries are still banning alcohol until these days like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya. Which group of countries have made the right decision about prohibiting alcohol' Is USA or Saudi Arabia have made the right decision about alcohol prohibition' The answer to these questions is that banning alcohol is the right decision that countries around the world should applied because consuming alcohol can guiding to negative health effects, cause many drunk car accidents, lead people to be alcoholism and lead to unplanned sexual encounters. Negative health effects: Negative health effects to which alcohol can guide is the first reason why alcohol should be banned. Researchers have divided alcohol negative effects into two categories which are short and long term effects. Short term effects: Getting death by drinking alcohol is one of the short term effects of drinking alcohol as (Dudley, 2006) said. “When a person drinks, alcohol travels to the stomach and the small intestine. From there it is absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to the rest of the body. The short term effects of alcohol can vary depending on the person’s physiology and the amount of alcohol consumed. These factors affect a person’s BAC, blood alcohol concentration the amount of alcohol circulating in the blood. As BAC increases, so do alcoholic’s effects on the brain and emotions. Thus, at BAC of .01 to .04, which is what most adults would attain with one or two drinks, a person may feel a decrease in inhibitions and a sense of elation or relaxation. At .05 to .07, which will be by three to four drinks, the drinker’s alertness is diminished and feeling of anxiety and depression may be increased. At .10, five to seven drinks, people experience clumsiness, loss of balance, and slurred speech. A person with a BAC between .15 and .20 may stumble around, insist he or she is not drunk, explode in a range, and not remember anything later. Alcohol generally causes a stupor at concentrations of .30 and a coma at .40. Death can occur at concentrations of .50 or more as the brain areas controlling the heart and lungs fail to function” as (Dudley, 2006) measured. If we assume that seven drinks can result to .10 in the BAC as Dudley said, thirty five drinks will result to .50 in the BAC, and so thirty five drinks of alcohol can cause death. It is right that thirty five drinks a day is too much for anyone to have, but when a person arrives to .20 in the BAC, he or she will be unable to control his emotions and actions and so he or she can easily get to the death percentage. Long term effects: In addition to short term health effects that drinking alcohol can guide to, drinking alcohol has many long term negative health effects. First of all, drinking alcohol regularly can cause many kinds of cancers to its drinkers. These cancers can be mouth, liver, esophagus, pharynx, larynx and other cancers. The U.S. National Cancer (Institute, 2008) states “drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, and liver in men and women, and of breast cancer in women. In general, these risks increase after about one daily drink for women and two daily drinks for men. (A drink is defined as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.). The chances of getting liver cancer increase markedly with five or more drinks per day. Heavy alcohol use may also increase the risk of colorectal cancer, and leads to greater increases in risk for most of the alcohol-related cancers. The earlier that long-term, heavy alcohol use begins, the greater the cancer risks. Also, using alcohol with tobacco is riskier than using either one alone, because it further increases the chances of getting cancers of the mouth, throat, and oesophagus”. "Considerable evidence suggests a connection between heavy alcohol consumption and increased risk for cancer, with an estimated 2 to 4 percent of all cancer cases thought to be caused either directly or indirectly by alcohol. Also that 3.6% of all cancer cases worldwide are related to alcohol drinking, resulting in 3.5% of all cancer deaths." As (Hill, 2004) indicated. Drunk-accidents: In addition to negative health effects that alcohol can cause, alcohol can cause many car accidents. . High percentages of car accidents happen as a result of drinking alcohol. According to wikipedia “In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 17,941 people died in 2006 in "alcohol-related" collisions, representing 41 percent of total traffic deaths in the US. Over 500,000 people were injured in alcohol-related accidents in the US in 2003”. Even though, the US use strict laws forbidding drunk drivers, such as taking away the drunk driver’s car license for a period of 90 days to five years and charge him/her a fine of a Minimum of $200 and not more than $1,000 for the first time as” www.bmv.ohio.gov” reported (Guzman, 2008). Huge numbers of people die everyday because of drunk drivers. In addition, being drunk may cause other violent acts. When people drink alcohol, they sometimes hurt others for no reason, and that may cause many injuries and deaths. For instance, I will never forget one of my friends story. Even though doctors advised my alcoholic friend, Mohannad, not to drink alcohol because it had caused him many health effects, 3 years ago, he kept doing his habit by drinking some glasses of alcohol at his home to warm up before getting to a party in Dubai. After that, When he arrived to the party, which was in the 300 club in Dubai as he said, he started dancing and drinking many types of alcohol beverages like beer, vodka and wine. After some of these drinks, he said he was unable to control himself as usual and so he kept drinking too much without controlling the quantity of alcohol he was drinking. After a few more drinks, he started saying things to his friends that he does not understand, which caused him to get in a fight with one of his friends because he said bad words to that friend. After the party had finished, while Mohannad was driving back to his home, he was unable to control his car. He was going right and left in the street and he could not keep the car in a straight line. In the road he was going through, an Indian man was crossing a green sign for pedestrians. By then, Mohannad could not control the car, and he injured the Indian man. Also, the car was turned over which injured Mohannad. Thus, that drunk accident caused two injuries and both of them were taken to the hospital. They both entered the emergency room. The doctors tried their best to save their lives, but they could not save the Indian man life because he was in a very bad situation. The Indian man’s family was crying and blaming Mohannad after he woke up. Mohannad, who was crying when he told me this story, was in a very bad situation, and he hoped by then that he was not born to this life as he said. From mohannad’s story, what happened to the Indian man because of drunk accident can happen to everyone of us if there still people drink alcohol which make them unable to control the cars they are driving and so they may damage anyone or anything in their way. Thus, to save citizens life from drunk-accidents, now is the right time to ban alcohol. Being alcoholism: Being alcoholism is the third reason why alcohol beverages should be banned. As (Herlihy, 2001) said alcoholism is a disease with some characteristics. First, it is a chronic disease, meaning it last a person’s life time. Second, it follows a predictable course. Third, it has four symptoms which are craving that is a strong need to drink, loss of control which happen when a person become unable to stop drinking once drinking has begun, physical dependence that is withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness and anxiety after stopping drinking, and finally tolerance which is the need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to get ‘high’. Alcoholism runs in families is the fourth characteristic. The fifth and last characteristic is that genes play a role in transmitting the disease, but other factors, such as lifestyle and stress contribute to a person’s risk of becoming alcoholic. Alcoholism is a danger disease that affects communities because when a person becomes alcoholism, she/he will have many negative effects that can affect him/her or the people around him or her. The person that is alcoholism can be affected by himself, for example, by losing his job, his family or his friends. “Some of the problems linked to alcoholic abuse include not being able to meet work, school, or family responsibilities; drunk-driving arrests and car crashes; and drink-related medical conditions” as (Ritson, 2008) said. On the other hand, the people around the alcoholism person may be affected by alcoholism by that the alcoholic person will spend almost his entire time drunk and so he will not improve his skills to improve the place he is living in. Thus, whenever the number of people becomes alcoholism increase, the standard of living decrease in the place where the alcoholisms live as (Herlihy, 2001) said. Because ‘nearly 14 million people in the United States, one in every thirteen adults, are alcoholic’ as (Dudley, 2006) said, people started to look for a solution to this situation. Thus, Alcoholics Anonymous programme, AA, was established in 1935 to help alcoholics getting back to their regular life. Alcoholics Anonymous, AA: ‘AA is a popular self-help organization whose members meet regularly in small group to support each other in their battle against alcoholism’ as (Warnat, 2006) mentioned. In 2006, 1,867,212 members joined AA and they divided into 106,202 AA groups as AA fact file mentioned. The book said also that 70% percents of the patients get remedy after joining AA. Unplanned Sexual Encounters: Being drunk lead you to unplanned sexual encounters is the last reason why alcohol beverages should be banned. “In many instances alcohol simply crates a positive mood and sense of well being. However, in some cases losing one’s inhibitions can result in behaviours and incidents that can cause later embarrassment-or worse. Some people become silly, sad, or depressed while intoxicated, while other may become angry, argumentative, aggressive, or even violent.” As (Dudley, 2006) said. Thus, alcohol can lead to unplanned sexual encounters, facilitate date rape, or cause people to engage in fights or criminal activities. In my Islamic culture, we call alcohol as the mother of crimes. My grandfather told me a story about why alcohol is the mother of crimes. He told there was a man, and that man was forced to choose whether to rape a woman, to steal money or to drink alcohol. That man thought that if he drinks alcohol will be the best one choice. My grandfather told me then, after that man got drunk, he did the other two crimes, which are rape the woman and steal the money. A 1987 study of youth held juvenile detention halls revealed that nearly a third of them were under the influence of alcohol when they were arrested as (Dudley, 2006) mentioned. He also adds “in worst-case scenarios, alcohol may result in behaviour that leads to people getting killed. Experts have estimated that alcohol use is responsible for one hundred thousand deaths each year in the United States. Many of these deaths are motor vehicle fatalities, but alcohol abuse also contributes to injuries and deaths from falls, drowning, fires and violence”. As an example of my own life for street fight that drinking alcohol caused, when I was in studying in a summer course in Vancouver, Canada, I went to a famous night club there. Some people from that club got drunk, and they started saying bad word to my friends for no reason except that they are Arabs. Then, my friends got mad and started fighting with the drunk-people. That fight caused many injuries, but thank to God there were no deaths. That was just a small fight; try to imagine if there is a big fight what could happen. Conclusion: In conclusion, countries, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya, that decided to ban alcohol and they are still banning it have made the right decision about this situation. These countries have avoided getting in many problems that alcohol cause. I mentioned here some of these problems. First, drinking alcohol is the reason behind many negative health effects. Causing huge numbers of car accidents is the second problem that these countries avoid. Third, alcohol leads people to be alcoholism. Finally, alcohol leads to many unplanned crimes. Other countries, like US, Russia, Iceland and Norway, that decided to ban alcohol and they failed to ban it should redo that decision. They should ban alcohol because alcohol has disadvantages that are more than its benefits. They should make the decision in steps not once at time, so people can accept the decision. For example, Islam prohibited alcohol beverages in many steps. First, Islam ban alcohol at the prayer time. Then, alcohol was not allowed in public. After that, the decision of banning alcohol appeared to say that alcohol is not allowed for Muslims. Since around 1425 years and until now, Muslims do not drink this beverage. Thus, countries should follow Islam in banning alcohol if they want their decision to be effective. References Works Cited Barbara, R. &. (2008). What's too Much' Maclean's , 121 (20/21), 59-60. Dudley, W. (2006). Alcohol. Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale. Fraser, S. (2006). Youth Drinking is a Serious Problem . In W. Dudley, Alcohol (pp. 17-22). Farmington Hills: Thomson Gale. Guzman, H. (2008). driver_license/dui_law.htm. Retrieved from www.bmv.ohio.gov: gov Hakim, J. (1995). War, Peace, and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. Herlihy, P. (2001). The Alcohol Empire. Oxford: Oxford University press. Hill, J. (2004). Prohibition. Griswold: Omnigraphics. Institute, U. N. (2008, January 7). Alcohol Consumption. 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