Alcohol control in Cuba: Preventing countervailing cultural and mass media influences

Abstract

Harmful use of alcohol-the prime gateway drug to other addictions-is also a problem in Cuba, even though the National Program for Prevention of Harmful Use of Alcohol includes the most Effective measures used in analogous programs around the world. As a participant in the program's committee and empirical observer of its accomplishments and unaccomplished goals, I draw attention to the community's attitude of tolerance toward intoxication manifested by the lack of proportional consequences, and I insist on the need to broaden the community's understanding of the risks of non-social drinking, which in Latin America is practically limited to alcoholism and its complications. This undervalues the damage wreaked by unpredictable and dangerous behavior under the influence, as well as the suff ering of codependents and other "passive drinkers," and the adverse effects of even social drinking.