Here we go again: Indonesian parliament considers alcohol ban.

dafluff

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DPR is discussing a draft which prohibits production, import, storage, distribution of alcoholic drinks, with a 2-10 yr sentence. Consumption carries a 3 mo. to 2 yr sentence.

There are exceptions for traditional, religious, tourism and other venues.

 
the "moral revolution" begins :D
 
And for the luckless passenger who turns up with a few bottles of wine at the airport? This will really help bring back tourists to Indonesia.
 
DPR is discussing a draft which prohibits production, import, storage, distribution of alcoholic drinks, with a 2-10 yr sentence. Consumption carries a 3 mo. to 2 yr sentence.

There are exceptions for traditional, religious, tourism and other venues.

How are the excepted places supposed to acquire said drinks if they are illegal to produce, import, store, and distribute?

I laugh off news like this the same way I do when Trump says Mexico will pay for his wall. Hopefully it stays that way.
 
Even if this bullshit law were put into place, the exceptions would swallow the rule. I thought these rectums would only bring up this garbage legislation within a few weeks of Ramadhan. I guess they are getting more aggressive since the chief rectum has returned from the KSA.
 
Even if this bullshit law were put into place, the exceptions would swallow the rule. I thought these rectums would only bring up this garbage legislation within a few weeks of Ramadhan. I guess they are getting more aggressive since the chief rectum has returned from the KSA.
If Ahok could go to gaol for suggesting that a Quaranic verse had been used to tell a lie, there is a fair chance that referring to a major religious leader as above could result in serious problems. It can't be assumed that only people of liberal attitudes read the forum. There may be the occasional visit by a fundamentalist who would be enraged at such a reference.
 
DPR is discussing a draft which prohibits production, import, storage, distribution of alcoholic drinks, with a 2-10 yr sentence. Consumption carries a 3 mo. to 2 yr sentence.

There are exceptions for traditional, religious, tourism and other venues.

It's one of the 30+ draft of law which are registered in the prolegnas 2020-2024, so periodically you will hear about it... to quickly sent it back to a state of lethargy.
I don't think that more than a handful number of DPR gives a s@*t about it to be honest. Such law would only benefit the police... and traders who deal with Miras.
In another thread some time ago I was saying that it was commonly admitted that up to 90% of the alcohol golongan C sold in Indonesia was smuggled/not duty paid. It has improved in the past ten years but the COVID situation has brought us back to a situation similar to what we had in the past.
I have been discussing with the representant of a few different importers in the past few months: legal stocks of spirits are depleted at most importers I know... but that is if you insist to have legally imported stuff of course.
As long as huge amount of money can be made and law enforcement can be bought, it's not a draft of law which will change anything.
 
There are apparently at least 3 alcohol sellers here in the village. There were 4, but one got raided a month or two ago. I have yet to frequent any (no idea what to buy or how much to pay and no desire to hang out in the jongko long enough to find out). Anyhow, they are said to all be unlicensed sellers. Apparently the proprietor looks at you and decides if they want to sell to you. Nothing would change for them.
 
I hate Golkar with a passion, but this comment from one of its members is comedic gold:

“Saya paham kekhawatiran minuman beralkohol beresiko, memang. Saya rasa tidak hanya minuman beralkohol saja [yang beresiko]. Saya pernah baca di media ada lomba berlebihan makan [ayam] kentucky, meninggal juga,” kata Firman saat rapat pembahasan.

loose translation: “I understand the concern, alcoholic beverages are risky indeed. I feel that not only alcoholic beverages are risky. I read on the media of a kentucky fried chicken eating contest, also causing death,” said Firman during the meeting.
 
If that hate and passion would be pointed to the tobacco industry, the nation would become much healthier.
 
Well that's probably the most diplomatic description I've ever heard of the said person.
I'm looking forward to Voldemort's prosecution on the open legal cases he has including:
  • blasphemy
  • treason/sedition
  • defamation
  • pornography
I'm not holding my breath though ..
 
Ironically, in response to Macron’s “insult”, the President pointed out (again) that Indonesia is a tolerant country. Indeed, minority groups are always tolerant of the majority group in Indonesia. This proposed alcohol ban is another example of Indonesia’s “tolerance”. Usually, when we talk about tolerance, it’s tolerance of the majority towards the minority, but not in Indonesia most of the time.
 
Before it was just the Muslim Parties involved with this. Evidently Garindria has signed on to it now too. Bigger Party. They complain how alcohol is causing death and crime but refuse to point fingers at the facts that it is primarily backroom bootleg stuff causing the problems. Make the commercial products illegal and the death and crimes will go up. They know this but it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't some profits in it for some.
 
As Atlantis and others have ably noted there's little chance of this becoming law. Indonesian lawmakers are seeking to police public morality in this instance rather than protect public health.

But that does not mean that an alcohol ban is unmerited. The WHO reports 3 million deaths globally per year from alcohol, both from the direct consumption of alcohol (both legal and illegal) and from alcohol related accidents. This figure includes people who didn't drink at all, victims of drunks behind the wheel. Many others who survive will suffer lifelong disability.

The pathological aspect of alcohol consumption is much harder to quantify on another level, however. Alcohol consumption is involved in more than half of all cases of rape here in United States. Similarly, alcohol intoxication has been studied for its relationship to everything from domestic abuse to HIV infection. We cannot put a dollar value on that kind of trauma.

Some here will argue that alcohol offers a "public good," that we've been doing it forever so we need to do it. "It's our culture" is a fig leaf deployed by some to excuse the prevalence, and attending pathology, of alcohol consumption.

That's no excuse. For any other product causing so much harm we'd rapidly pull it from the market. Heck, for products causing less an even a thousandth of that harm we'd pull it. But alcohol gets a pass because it is seen as "too good to give up."

The brass tacks on alcohol consumption in Indonesia should be: is a ban enforceable and is it being done as part of a public health initiative rather than a moral crusade? Since neither is true, no one should seriously support this ban. But should there be an effort by the government to gradually reduce alcohol's harm and make it disappear from shelves?

You bet.
 
That's no excuse. For any other product causing so much harm we'd rapidly pull it from the market. Heck, for products causing less an even a thousandth of that harm we'd pull it. But alcohol gets a pass because it is seen as "too good to give up."

That was tried before. It didn't end because they decided alcohol was actually a cultural good, it was ended because making it illegal created more problems than it solved.
 
The brass tacks on alcohol consumption in Indonesia should be: is a ban enforceable and is it being done as part of a public health initiative rather than a moral crusade? Since neither is true, no one should seriously support this ban. But should there be an effort by the government to gradually reduce alcohol's harm and make it disappear from shelves?

You bet.
Excerpt from "Strategies to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol" : Draft : 2009

"The level of regulation on the availability of alcohol will depend on local circumstances, including social, cultural and economic contexts as well as existing binding international obligations. In some low- and middle-income countries, informal markets are the main source of alcohol and formal controls on sale need to be complemented by actions addressing illicit or
informally produced alcohol. Furthermore, restrictions on availability that are too strict may promote the development of a parallel illicit market."


Admittedly, I only kinda skimmed the document (it's long and full of meaningless, non-actionable, buzzwords), but my take is that the WHO would not support an all-out ban as a first method of control. I realize you didn't say they would... But I was curious enough to see what methods of harm reduction they do encourage.

Most of what they have in there is community action and government support stuff, the sort of things that you would expect to see in a campaign for mental health care or poverty reduction. Perhaps that isn't surprising, as there are correlations between alcohol consumption and poverty/mental health issues.

For me, I'd take government soft action (education, healthcare, and even convoluted purchasing schemes like you see with marijuana clubs in Amsterdam) over government hard action (fines and prison sentences) any day of the week, on just about any social issue. I know that stuff is expensive, but alcohol can always be taxed.
There may be an illicit market increase because of taxes, but if a government is so poor at enforcing its laws that taxes cannot be implemented effectively, all the more reason said government should not be trusted to put people in jail over social issues. I want my government to be like my doctor, encourage good behavior and treat me when I need it, even quarantine me if I am a danger to others. I don't want someone to enforce best practices when I'm mostly just endangering myself.
 
As Atlantis and others have ably noted there's little chance of this becoming law. Indonesian lawmakers are seeking to police public morality in this instance rather than protect public health.

But that does not mean that an alcohol ban is unmerited. The WHO reports 3 million deaths globally per year from alcohol, both from the direct consumption of alcohol (both legal and illegal) and from alcohol related accidents. This figure includes people who didn't drink at all, victims of drunks behind the wheel. Many others who survive will suffer lifelong disability.

The pathological aspect of alcohol consumption is much harder to quantify on another level, however. Alcohol consumption is involved in more than half of all cases of rape here in United States. Similarly, alcohol intoxication has been studied for its relationship to everything from domestic abuse to HIV infection. We cannot put a dollar value on that kind of trauma.

Some here will argue that alcohol offers a "public good," that we've been doing it forever so we need to do it. "It's our culture" is a fig leaf deployed by some to excuse the prevalence, and attending pathology, of alcohol consumption.

That's no excuse. For any other product causing so much harm we'd rapidly pull it from the market. Heck, for products causing less an even a thousandth of that harm we'd pull it. But alcohol gets a pass because it is seen as "too good to give up."

The brass tacks on alcohol consumption in Indonesia should be: is a ban enforceable and is it being done as part of a public health initiative rather than a moral crusade? Since neither is true, no one should seriously support this ban. But should there be an effort by the government to gradually reduce alcohol's harm and make it disappear from shelves?

You bet.
In Indonesia when you impose bureaucratic hurdle on legal and quality-controlled alcoholic drinks to remove it from the shelves, you will get illegal and occasionally toxic moonshine in roadside stalls. Heck, you can find plenty of unlicensed alcohol production even today, and it will become the norm if you squeeze on legal alcohol.

Alcohol consumption in Indonesia is nowhere near as high as in USA. Making it scarce will create a ‘solution’ that’s worse than the problem.
 
That was tried before. It didn't end because they decided alcohol was actually a cultural good, it was ended because making it illegal created more problems than it solved.

Who is "they"?

Indonesia is among the world's most abstemious countries. To be clear, very few of the indigenous people drink. There are some indigenous alcoholic beverages. The lion's share of people are not regular drinkers.

A Prohibition-like ban in Indonesia would not create some serious underworld network of speakeasies. The people of the United States were already a nation of drunks. The vast majority of adults drank, hard.

Aceh is, to my knowledge, the only province in Indonesia where alcohol is roundly forbidden outside of select venues like the Hermes Palace hotel in Banda Aceh. The locals didn't drink already. There isn't a market for it. Why should it be lawful for foreigners in a place like Aceh to drink and cause the public harm with no discernible benefit to the indigenous people?

By extension, why should it be lawful anywhere when, by a cost/benefit analysis, alcohol is nothing but loss?
 

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