Alcohol Concern Zambia (ACZ) is calling on the government to strengthen legislation to curtail the sale of high potent spirits commonly known as tujilijili or junta from the open market and the streets.
ACZ is concerned that the selling of these high potent spirits has become wide spread across the country and contributing to the high consumption of alcohol among young people, yet like any other alcoholic beverages, these high potent spirits are supposed to be sold from registered and regulated outlets in accordance with the Liquor Licensing Act Cap 17 of the Laws of Zambia.
Currently the Liquor Licensing Act is being flouted with impunity across the country and the selling of alcohol in the street is now being seen as normal and acceptable. This is detrimental to public health policy and the welfare of many young people and adults in the country taking advantage of the easy availability and access to buying these alcoholic beverages.
Current measures where council officers acting under the Liquor Licensing Act occasionally make swoops on street vendors and Kachasu brewers are unsustainable as they care often a one-off event conducted overtime and covering a limited geographical area.
To make matters worse, most councils and municipalities do not even have the requisite manpower to enforce such measures as a means to curtail illegal alcohol sales.
Adding to this concern is the proliferation of many different brands of high potent alcoholic beverages being sold on the market resulting in alcohol abuse becoming common place among the youth.
Alcohol abuse may lead many youth and young adults becoming alcohol dependent and exposed to mental health disorders including taking to alcohol induced aggressiveness and violence, criminal tendencies, self-harm and sometimes suicidal thoughts and attempts. Heavy drinking from an early age is also impacting young people’s ability to make rational decisions. Many well-endowed and talented young people have dropped out or abandoning their education or employment because of the impact of alcohol on their mental health.
The issue of alcohol abuse has left many parents and family members traumatized on seeing their children’s potential and prospects decapitate in front of their eyes while many marriages have broken up leaving children destitute.
The youth are particularly vulnerable to alcohol abuse and if this trend is left unchecked it has the potential to negatively impact on the country’s economic transformation agenda as the human resource (youths) to drive development would have been destroyed by alcohol abuse.
Sata tried , it helped a bit
Today we have perpetually drunk millennials due to the uncontrolled availability of this industrial spirit.
Tia drinking is a choice. Anyone who becomes an alcoholic usually has other underlying psychological issues. The priority should be for mental health services to be developed. The upnd are sleeping. They have a local govt minister who forces poor kachaso traders to drink kachaso and you say we have a new dawn. Fuseke
What are spirits? Do you mean alcohol? @TIA, no one tried
What is the SOURCE of these drinks?
When people want to sustain wrong-doing, they first rig the system. Today we have officers who don’t understand the concept behind licensing. They don’t know why you require to place an advert in the media for certain licenses. Licenses are now a mere revenue base for councils and the more they issue out, the more money in their pockets. LCC officers were surprised when they found out that Mtendere market had 98% licensed liquor outlets as compared to shops and stalls. But this is a market! We no longer have controls. Manufacturers go to sell directly to retailers and wholesalers have retail outlets at the same premises. They sell to everyone as long as they have money to pay. They don’t care if you have a license or not. Isn’t this a sign that we’ve failed to rule ourselves?
Some really do have psychological issues
Unfortunately most are on here
Changing the marketing strategy will not spot the abuse, banning it altogether is the solution. Junta has done more harm than Kachasu. Next in line to ban is “Papas”
Garry Nkombo the ALL KNOWING hypocrite should say something
@kaizer ,
In Zambia it’s only in sata’s era when production of tujilijili was regulated just a bit.
It’s common knowledge that when liquor is cheap, the raw materials used in it’s production are equally cheap.in most cases molasses, methanol and other dangerous substances.thats when government comes in
We have so far many undocumented deaths related to this illegal liquor found almost every where in Zambia.
The tujilijili debacle is almost incorrigible in our society
Who is going to stop it and by what means? During one of our assignments on alcohol in one densely populated areas, we normally found both council and ZP officers drinking in closed bars before opening time. All they did was to take off their caps.
@Advocate
It’s distilled from , sugar cane, molasses etc, and in some instances methanol and other dangerous substances added to the concoction to increase its alcoholic potency.
This drink has caused a lot of misery in Zambia
Indeed @5. As I keep saying, we are struggling!
#plant a tree please.
The UPND has an opportunity to stop this retrogresive trend; President HH is a disciplined and sober person and is already leading by example, unlike his predecessor. Come with strict laws and regulations that can curb to this moral decandance vice and save Zambia.
Alcoholic freedom paves way to community criminology and laziness which retards progress, it’s retrogressive indeed
#5 Ayatollah….in the golden years even to see sell chitenge material on the street one needed a hawkers license. To buy from the wholesale you needed a license.
BACK IN THE DAY IS HISTORY
THEY SHALL NEVER RETURN WITH OUR MODERN CULTURE
IT APPEARS LIFE WILL BE A BATTLE TILL DEATH DO US PART
Just like the saying goes – kumwa siba lesa manje kamwedwe.. junta is distilled in such a way that before you take it in,, it requires to be diluted or mixed with a non alcoholic beverage but what is happening is totally the opposite the youths are taking it dry..so whose at fault the distiller or the irresponsible youth?? Be smart and take mosi or castle boi not vama spirit even Jameson ni junta.
@Advocate
Spirits is the British term for the distilled alcohols as opposed to beers. Beers, Mosi, Chibuku, umqombothi are usually fermented.