Sunday 9 August 2015

Vegemite - a reminder (if you needed one) that prohibition doesn't work

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OK it's Australia, home to some of the world's most intrusive fussbucketry but it's a lesson:

Australia’s government says Vegemite sales should be limited in some communities to prevent the yeast-based spread being used to make home-made alcohol.

Nigel Scullion, the indigenous affairs minister, said the spread – which is considered something of a national culinary staple – was a "precursor to misery" in communities suffering from alcohol abuse.

He said he was not proposing a ban but wanted to restrict excessive sales of high-yeast products such as Vegemite in “dry” communities – typically remote Aboriginal townships where alcohol sales are banned.

“Addiction of any type is a concern but communities, especially where alcohol is banned, must work to ensure home brewing of this type does not occur,” he said.

See what's happened here? These 'dry' communities (apparently Aussie white people think Aboriginal drink problems relate to some natural predisposition not to 200 years of oppression) do what dry communities always do - they make their own booze. And, as we all know, alcohol is very easy to make.

You see, prohibition doesn't work.

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1 comment:

Jude Nunga said...

I live in Western Australia, and although I don't believe in prohibition of any kind, (as you say it doesn't work), I just want to comment about the "dry" communities that are mentioned in this article. This is not some top down government or racist policy, the communities are "dry" because the people living in those communities have decided that is how they want their community run. It is the Aboriginal people who have put this policy in place, and who enforce it. Many actually had to fight the government to be able to have a "dry" community, because in these remote areas there is a lot of money to be made by selling alcohol, and those who owned the shops that sold it didn't want to give up their cash cow.

This "ban" on vegemite is just a brain fart by another politician that suffers from extreme cerebral flatulence. This is a stupid policy proposal that is unlikely to be enacted, however please do not try to make out it is some kind of racist oppression, it isn't.