Although many people drink alcohol and say that it helps them to be happy and socialize with friends and relatives if it is consumed by someone under the age of 21, it damages the brain and can even lead to death, and what used to be happiness turns into tears. The role of alcohol in brain damage in the under-21 brain.
There are those who say that they make a person happy and contain the alcohol (alcohol) that the body needs, however, alcohol can be found without it.
An employee at the National Center for Health Care, RBC, in the Anti-Drug Department, Ndacyayisenga Dynamo, says that the frontal cortex part of the human brain grows up to the age of 21, and it also helps in memory and emotional control.
He said, “This part helps him to remember what he has learned or learned in the past days and that is what helps a person to use his mind. “When you give alcohol to someone under the age of 21, that part doesn’t grow, which makes them addicted.”
Among the diseases that can affect an alcoholic is a liver cancer.
Statistics show that more than 800,000 people die from colon cancer every year.
Ndayisenga said that apart from causing cancer, blood circulation is also impaired due to alcohol.
He said, “You will find that the blood circulation of these people [who drink alcohol] is so impaired that it can lead to high blood pressure because the body is using extra energy to pump it from the heart to the liver.”
He goes on to say that this young child consumes alcohol and the liver is not yet mature, his blood circulation is damaged and the liver is difficult to filter the alcohol and the blood is also damaged.
Regarding the fact that people are going to holiday, I pray that people should be careful “because life is expensive, it is not worth buying the happiness of one day so that tomorrow he will face a disease caused by alcohol.”
He advises the elders that they should not drink alcohol in the presence of children and that there is a designated place for drinking alcohol, instead of drinking it at home because it can put the child’s life at risk, especially because alcohol is not consumed.
In the meeting of the 15th Unity, Club Intwararumuri held on November 12, 2022, this issue was resolved so that the participants also requested to increase the age of consent to drink alcohol in Rwanda, from 18 to 21.
They requested this while the latest figures from the Caraes Ndera Psychiatric Hospital, show that in the year 2021/2022 they received 96,357 patients, of which more than 70% were young people with drug and alcohol-related problems.
The report of the International Health Organization, WHO, of 2018, showed that Rwanda ranks second in the region in having people who drink a lot of alcohol.
At least people over the age of 15 in Rwanda, one person per year drinks 9 liters of unmixed alcohol.
WHO statistics also show that at least three million people in the world die each year as a result of alcohol-related causes, equal to 5.3% of all deaths per year.
Among young people between the ages of 20 and 29, the WHO reports that 13.5% of deaths in that age group are due to alcohol consumption.
A young alcoholic can lose the ability to make decisions, and a person is impulsive or emotionally manipulated.
