Substituting the very bad for the bad

Sometimes it is just not possible, or too hard to actually solve a social problem, in which case it might be easier to try to just reduce the problem. 1 example would be to decide to use biofuels instead of oil for energy, in that using biofuels is better than oil, in terms of the impact on climate change (though still debatable), but it still has many other negative impacts (food prices increase being one of them).

Another example, rather more interesting, is the issue of alcoholism which leads to health problems (such as harming the liver) and social problems (such as abusing others or not working). This article talks about a solution in Africa where local alcohol is highly alcoholic and dangerous, but extremely cheap. So if something less alcoholic (and thus less dangerous) can be provided for the same price, people might switch. It is an interesting solution; and what i like about it is that it still tries to create local economic benefit (which presumably, the local dangerous alcohol does) in order to keep costs down.

A parallel can be drawn with cigarettes and providing low-tar cigarettes (or 'light' cigarettes) instead of regulars. Though, is this the best solution compared to promoting nicotine patches or just by trying to stop smoking altogether? It depends on the problem, since now the problem is seen less as the health impacts on the smoker and more on the health impacts of others (and the nuisance factor). Presumably promoting such low-tar options, though helping reduce the harm on the smoker, does not really reduce the nuisance factor and still harms (though maybe somewhat less) other passive smokers.

I wonder what the side-effects of the above mentioned experiment is Africa are -would the local alcohol growers/sellers start campaigns against the cheap beer?, and whether there has been any studies on them. Well, if DfID get involved, I am sure there will be plenty of studies!