Beer crisis: Presidential task force cites research to prove Finance Ministry wrong

The Presidential Drug Prevention Task Force has drawn the Finance Ministry’s attention to the task force’s three-years of research in a bid to persuade the ministry to review its alcohol taxation proposal.

“Both the President and those of us at the Task Force are deeply disappointed with the Finance Ministry’s conduct on this matter,” Dr Samantha Kumara Kithalawaarachchi, Director of the Presidential Task Force on Drug Prevention told the Sunday Times, claiming that they were completely in the dark regarding the decision to reduce taxes on beer.

He said the task force, which was formed in 2015 under the President’s vision of creating an “intoxicants-free country,” had conducted several studies to prove the strategy of reducing taxes on beer would not achieve any of its stated objectives.

The President has also urged the Finance Minister to consider a review of the proposal.

“The strategy has not worked in any other country and won’t work here. In fact, we can say with conviction that it would only make matters worse. We could have pointed this out to those at the Finance Ministry if they had only consulted us before formulating these proposals. For reasons unknown to us, this was not done.”

The task force claims that making beer cheaper and more freely available would be a “gateway” for people to explore hard liquor and illicit drugs.

Dr Kithalawaarachchi pointed out that the flawed strategy was tried out in 1995, when the then Government slashed beer taxes by as much as 50 per cent. Not only did this result in a documented rapid increase in alcohol use, it also led to more people turning to hard liquor and drugs, he claimed.

“We have interviewed many heroin addicts and they claim that their first experience of liquor and drugs were through beer and cigarettes. Their age suggests to us that many started on beer around the time it became more freely available. If we continue with this tax reduction, we will be repeating the same mistake.”

He also rejected claims made by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera that reducing beer taxes would persuade people to turn away from ‘Kasippu’ (Illicit Liquor).

The vast majority of kasippu drinkers would not automatically switch to beer just because it had been made cheaper, Dr Kithalawaarachchi said, describing the study widely quoted by the Finance Minister and others in the Government as 'deeply flawed'. The study claims that 49 percent of alcohol users in the country consume illicit liquor.

He cited a research the task force conducted jointly with the Rajarata University to back his claim. The countrywide study was based on independently collected data from all 228 Divisional Secretariats and 438 police stations. It adopted two methods and sought to find out whether illicit liquor consumption in their areas was low, moderate or high. “Both methods showed there had been a drastic decrease in illicit liquor consumption from 2015 to