Meanwhile, taxes on alcohol often are an essential part of state income. In wartorn Burundi, a brewery jointly owned by the government and a European brewing firm is the only game in town. There is a lot of profit, and no beer truck has ever been hit by a grenade or mine. Ironically, in Burundi, as in Rwanda, Chechnya, Bosnia, and other countries at war, the majority of war crimes are committed by armed men and children acting under the influence of alcohol. The connection is not accidental.
Alcohol acts on the cerebrum to depress inhibitions.
Heavy drinkers can violate their inner moral code in ways incomprehensible even to themselves Ounce of Prevention Few regions have succeeded in reducing the supply or use of alcohol. In the Pacific-island country of Western Samoa, where traditionally only men drink, a group of women came together to oppose construction of a brewery. But with largess from the brewery, the men voted for construction. In the former Soviet Union, a 1980s effort initiated by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to curtail alcohol consumption likewise met with massive resistance. As in the Prohibition era in the United States, it opened the door for organized crime to take over production and distribution of alcohol.