Hussam Fahmy

Did you know that the world's most dangerous drug is legal and can be bought quite easily? This is what Italian director Andreas Bichler tells us in the documentary film "Alkohol", which tracks the manufacture of alcohol and its medical and psychological impact on people around the world, from Germany and England to Nigeria and Iceland.

More dangerous than wars
In the film, Bechler tells us that there is no substance in the world that affects each brain cell differently, like alcohol. It is available in most countries of the world legally, and no drug classifies it, despite its psychological impact and its ability to destroy brain cells, where alcohol causes 3 million people die annually.

Then the director, through the interventions of experts and former alcoholics, has asked us: Have we been blinded by all these dangers for all these years? Another important question is "What role does the alcohol industry, which exceeds 1.2 trillion euros annually, play?"

In the first chapter of the movie, we get to know the fearsome alcohol world in Germany and Britain, where every German drinks the equivalent of 200 liters of beer annually, and alcoholic beverages represent a permanent ritual for the fans of English football teams, and on Saturday night and the weekend turn into a theater for many scenes The badness caused by excessive drinking.

Sometimes it leads to violence, addiction and depression at other times, and liver disease comes gradually, and eventually a person around the world dies every 10 seconds as a result of alcohol complications.

The industry is not shy
The film crew then travels to Nigeria, to get to know more about the global alcohol sales market, which exceeds 3 billion dollars per day, in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, the situation is much worse than Europe, there people drink alcohol in huge quantities not for fun but to enter a state of sugar Forget their worries.

In addition, some alcohol companies exploit groups with thousands of poor girls and contract them to promote their alcoholic drinks even if this eventually leads to the work of these girls in prostitution, in a region that may be among the highest regions in the world in terms of infection rates in STDs.

Icelandic experience
In the last chapter of the film, we move on to experience the Icelandic experience, which turned from one of the most alcohol-consuming countries in the world to one of the least alcohol-consuming countries, as Iceland reduced alcohol consumption among young people and adolescents in particular by more than 90% by reducing youth dependence on the image It suggests that wine is what makes them special, or drives people to get to know them.

In addition, the state paid special attention to increasing hours of exercise inside high schools and universities, and specialized schools added training hours to raise awareness of body health, the best way to relax and use yoga, and the experiment was so successful that the Italian director then tries to transfer it to Germany and England And Italy.

Mental health and acceptance
Solving the problem then begins by recognizing it, and this film tries hard to prove that alcohol companies have deceived the world for many years by continuing not to classify alcohol as an anesthetic, a substance no less dangerous than any other type of drug, but increases its risk to increase its availability and ease of use .

It takes many years of changing the mentality that currently deals with alcohol as a social rite without which people do not integrate into Western societies, as it represents the means of acquaintance and a sense of first self among young people.

Cigarette companies around the world are forced today to write the phrase "smoking destroys health and causes death" on all of its products.