Increasing Alcohol consumption amongst Muslims in Pakistan – specially youth!
This is a rather intriguing news byte that I came across. The incidence in the consumption of liquor amongst Muslim men, women and children in Pakistan is very high – higher than the other communities. Specifically interesting is that more and more youth and women are consuming increasing quantities of alcohol! In an Islamic nation this is indeed an amazing statistic! These numbers are reflective of urban population. Which in some ways shows how removed the Urban population is from the ultra-Islamic posturing of the mullahs and Islamic parties. Yet, they do accept them tacitly in the jingoism.
On the other hand, is this reflective of the high change and churn/tensions in the society coupled with increased prosperity for some? The stock exchange has done well in the last few years in Pakistan and I am sure many have made enough fortunes.
Through data collected over five years, Waseem Haider, a surgeon at the Medico-Legal Punjab office in Lahore, found that addiction to alcohol is far higher among Muslim men and women in urban areas than members of the Christian, Hindu and other minority communities.
Of the 1,560 intoxication cases detected by police and reported to the medico-legal office in the past five years, Muslims accounted for 92.89 per cent while people from other religions comprise 7.11 per cent, said a report in The Nation newspaper on M.
Nearly two per cent of the reported cases were of women. However, only 15 per cent of the alcoholics showed up for treatment at the medico-legal office.
The age-wise analysis of cases shows that even children aged between 10 and 15 years were consuming alcohol.
The highest number of cases — 42.56 per cent — involved teenagers and young adults between 16 and 25 years.
The incidence of consumption of liquor stood at 35 per cent between 26 and 35 years, at 15.32 percent between 36 years and 45 years, at 5.38 percent between 46 and 55 years and at 1.54 percent between 56 and 65 years.