COMMENT | Perikatan Nasional and the many wannabe politicians among the clerics in PAS thought they could regulate the lives of non-Muslims with the ban on alcohol. They forgot about supply and demand. They should be prepared for more smuggling of alcohol and more importantly, the proliferation of illegal breweries.

The ban on alcohol would have serious repercussions on employment within the tourist trade, the hospitality industry, the entertainment industry, airlines, drink manufacturers and the ancillary trades which cater to the brewing companies, like duty-free outlets, supermarkets, Chinese medicine shops, warehouses, drivers and bottle manufacturers.

These companies would have paid their taxes, their permits and licence for selling alcohol.

Three days ago, the authorities arrested a Malaysian and two Myanmar nationals, in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya, for allegedly smuggling huge quantities of alcohol worth an estimated RM1.3 million.

The imported alcohol had been stored at a place of worship, to avoid detection, and sold to locals at a lower price than in the Klang Valley.

When PAS proposed a ban on alcohol last year, to curb drink-driving, did they imagine that it would...