Editorial: The Inkling

I wonder how the teenager and his friends – suspected by the police to have been drunk – managed to purchase and consume alcohol prior to the early morning accident.  Where could they have possibly obtained the alcohol?  Someone ought to find out.  Someone has to pay.  Maybe OEK needs to sober up and make further amendments to the amendments of the amended statutes – be workaholics and hang those responsible three times over!There is a law that prohibits anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing alcoholic beverages and further prohibits the same age group from consumption of alcohol anywhere within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Palau.  It is also stipulated in the statutes that sale of alcohol in Palau to anyone who is under the age of 21 is a big “NO-NO!”As recently as a few months ago, concerns about teenage drinking – spurned by Mechesil Belau during all of its annual conferences – were causes for immediate OEK public hearings with owners of establishments that serve alcohol; and much to the delight of the concerned as indicated in OEK studies, the amendments were made.  Business hours for the bars, cabarets, and other establishments that served alcohol were cut short – no audits have been done to determine the exact amount of money the businesses lost as a result.  I figure they still sell the same amount of alcohol and that number of patrons who frequent that establishment has not dropped – the social drinkers and unsocial drinkers are getting along just fine, and ironically, teenagers are learning to get drunk earlier with them.I do not know about you, but I think something drastic must be done, if we want to save our teenagers from the research-based direct and indirect effects of alcohol consumption.  Life is worth so much more than taxes.OEK should seriously think about banning alcohol altogether – maybe when all the proposed developments are realized, amendments could be made then.  For now, there is just too much at stake to simply propose sanctions that are not enforced.OEK has done it before.  Guns were and still are banned – one could be jailed for as long as 15 years for possessing a single bullet.  Why can’t the same thing be done for alcohol?Guns, for all that matters, did not and never contributed to chronic effects – ranging from simple unreasonable social arguments to long term emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual defects in individuals, families, and the whole of society – as alcohol has presented to the people of Palau.I am beginning to think that, as a society, we are too drunk to remember.  Maybe you and I are among those people who spend so much time working to earn enough for “the happy hours.”  We seem to know to have had fun, but can’t remember what we did because we were wasted! We are so “hang-over” the profits of alcohol and we are losing are investments – drink up!