Drinking is an almost unavoidable part of college life. Some people drink away their entire OSAP loan in a month because they piss their money away at the bars. Others drink at house parties and make it last a little longer. But whether you're buying beer from the beer store or from a bar, most of your money is going back to the government.

Here in Ontario, the provincial government has a complete monopoly on the distribution of alcoholic beverages, and you pay more to them than you do to the corporate mega-brewery every time you buy a case. We go into debt while they sell us booze. We get wasted while they collect. We piss our future away, and they never stop collecting. It's time to break the cycle and there is a couple ways to do that.

The first way normally isn't that popular with the college crowd but is definitely the most effective and logical: stop drinking. Being straight edged frees up incredible amounts of time and resources that could be used for far better purposes. It is a simple way of avoiding one of this society's greatest forms of social control. It also means you won't waste all your money on beverages that turn you into an incoherent Casanova, or on cab fares to get your disoriented and irrational self home. You'll probably also keep a lot more friends, do far less humiliating things, and avoid many unnecessary conflicts.

The other option, which I have opted for as an alcoholic, is to seize the means of production, and cut out all the middlemen, taxmen, producers, marketers, distributers, and retailers. We don't need to feed their system. We can easily craft our own beverages, with our own ingredients, in our own homes.

We don't live in a fascist dictatorship, and brewing your own wine and beer is still legal. Right now, you could be making you own alcohol, and giving a thanks but no thanks to the government and corporate alcohol companies. There's loads of tutorials on how to do this online, or you could find one of the dozens of brewing supply stores in town and ask them to give you a basic rundown. It's incredibly cheap to start-up, and if you started today in about a month you could have an endless supply of alcohol.

The beautiful thing about brewing your own alcoholic beverages is that you are taking back the control of these controlled substances. You are no longer at the mercy of alcohol companies and the government. You can provide yourself with the substances you want.

Brewing your own alcohol isn't about alcohol; it's about power. The government controls alcohol because it gives them incredible amounts of power. By producing your own alcohol you are taking that power back.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.