Alcohol:

Somebody once said something to the effect that those who pay no attention to history are bound to repeat it.

It's happening as we speak. While American Carrie Nation, who took an axe to any bar that sold alcohol in any form in the first half of the 20th Century has long ago expired, her disciples in the form of Mothers Against Drunk Driving here in Canada are busily preaching doom in the early part of Century 21.

We all know how Nation's efforts brought about Prohibition, which brought about smuggling, bootlegging, fuelled the rise of countless mafias and other illegal enterprises, many of which are still in operation as underground economies.

While complicit politicians in the US made the sale of alcohol illegal, in no way did it curtail its use. It just went underground. 

Publicity-hungry politicians in the early part of the 21st Century are once again giving in to the persistent campaigning of the MADD organizers,  sneaking more oppression into the lives of Canadians. No prohibition yet, but already idle cops with no imagination are going about counting empties being delivered back to the liquor stores.

It happened in Streetsville, a community in Mississauga on the western end of Toronto's Golden Horseshoe. A retired postal worker  was grabbed by a cop for returning to the local liquor store a couple of cases of beer bottles consumed over the Christmas holidays.

There was little trouble with alcohol in the horse and buggy days. If the driver paid too little attention to how much he drank in the course of an evening, the horse usually had enough sense to take him home with little prompting.

Cars were another matter. They required that the driver remain conscious of what was happening. That fact probably helped make Carrie Nation's actions seem sane in the early era of automobile travel. 

Eighty years later, we're still wrestling with that one. We're still grumbling about alcohol even though technology and whacko tobacco have become more distracting and more dangerous than alcohol in the hands of  suicidal drivers or semi-conscious pedestrians.

It is unlikely attitudes regarding the use of alcohol are about to change. Ethanol is too much a part of our existence. It's been with us from the beginning and is a vital part of our evolution. 

Those who want to see how, can Google Marula Fruit, an African treat that all the animals love to eat, especially when it ripens and falls to the earth, where it begins to ferment. The animals--everything from  baboons to elephants--love it, gorge on it, and stagger around drunkenly.

There can be no doubt at all that early humans were right in there munching on Marula Fruit right along with the monkeys and baboons. 

And those humans who were forced to leave the Marula trees behind when they migrated to Europe and Asia found they can get hammered by fermenting other things, such as barley, wheat, grapes, sugar cane, potatoes, and even turnips.

While alcohol is probably not an essential component of successful human development, there is little doubt that it contributed.

How? Well, to begin with, it is a very effective truth serum. Many of our brightest artists, writers and decision makers were not shy about its use. For proof, all we need do is compare civilizations that are not stingy with their consumption of alcohol with those that forbid its use.

Think vodka, a favorite of the Russian cultures, scotch, a favorite of the Scots, beer of the Brits and Germans, bourbon of the Americans, wine of the French and Italians, and rye of the Canadians.

Did alcohol figure prominently in commercial deal making? It must have. Something special was at work when you compare cultures of technological and commercial success with those of third-world inertia.

We regard alcoholics with prominent blood vessels in their noses as hopeless addicts, without noticing that they also sport a luxuriant thatch that is about five times as dense as the hair follicles on individuals of equal age who do not imbibe. Is it due to the expanded circulation in the epidermis that discolors the skin of the schnozz?

Let us hope this discussion prompts no run on liquor stores by bald men determined to grow hair on their heads. Further, if the suppliers of alleged hair stimulants have not already figured a way to employ ethanol in their hair growth potions other than drinking it, I want a share of the action.