Imagine if the media covered alcohol like other drugs

[phands]

Fascinating viewpoint. Alcohol is way worse than the opioid epidemic.....

What if the media covered alcohol like it does other drugs? This was a question that came up in my coverage of flakka, a synthetic drug that made headlines after law enforcement blamed it for people running in the streets naked in delusional paranoia. What follows is a satirical attempt at capturing that same type of alarmist reporting, but for a substance that really causes widespread and severe problems.

NEW ORLEANS — An ongoing drug epidemic has swept the US, killing hundreds and sickening thousands more on a daily basis.


The widespread use of a substance called "alcohol" — also known as "booze" — has been linked to erratic and even dangerous behavior, ranging from college students running naked down public streets to brutal attacks and robberies.


Federal officials suggest excessive use of this drug has already been linked to 88,000 deaths each year across the country, including traffic accidents caused by drug-induced impairment, liver damage caused by excessive consumption, and violent behavior. Experts warn that it can also lead to nausea, vomiting, severe headaches, cognitive deficits among children and teens, and even fetal defects in pregnant women.


Excessive consumption of alcohol "is a leading cause of preventable deaths in the US," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principal deputy director Ileana Arias said in a statement. "We need to implement effective programs and policies to prevent binge drinking and the many health and social harms that are related to it, including deaths from alcohol poisoning."

much more at https://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8774233/alcohol-dangerous

 

[Politesse]

I'd be game. I'm still on the side of the Prohibitionists, I think it is a far more credible threat than a lot of actually illegal substances. I mean, I like wine as much as the next guy, but I would be willing to give it up in exchange for less abused kids and deaths in traffic and situational hate crimes, etc.

 

[ideologyhunter]

My sideline: what if the media covered cigarette-related death the same way they screech about the opioid crisis? It is supposed to stop us in our tracks to hear that fifty- to sixty- thousand Americans have fatal drug overdoses every year. Since that is approximately the American death total from Vietnam, there's a convenient factoid that you'll hear over and over. But tobacco puts something like 400,000 Americans in their graves every year. It's the legal drugs that kill us like flies. Always has been.

 

[J842P]

I'd be game. I'm still on the side of the Prohibitionists, I think it is a far more credible threat than a lot of actually illegal substances. I mean, I like wine as much as the next guy, but I would be willing to give it up in exchange for less abused kids and deaths in traffic and situational hate crimes, etc.

Yeah. I wonder why no one has ever tried it.

 

[Politesse]

I'd be game. I'm still on the side of the Prohibitionists, I think it is a far more credible threat than a lot of actually illegal substances. I mean, I like wine as much as the next guy, but I would be willing to give it up in exchange for less abused kids and deaths in traffic and situational hate crimes, etc.

Yeah. I wonder why no one has ever tried it.

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

 

[bilby]

I'd be game. I'm still on the side of the Prohibitionists, I think it is a far more credible threat than a lot of actually illegal substances. I mean, I like wine as much as the next guy, but I would be willing to give it up in exchange for less abused kids and deaths in traffic and situational hate crimes, etc.

Yeah. I wonder why no one has ever tried it.

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

The will of the people is more powerful than government.

Organised crime just steps in to the market opportunity that that will creates.

The smart position on any recreational drug is to allow it, regulate it, and tax it. Unregulated use causes societal harm. Prohibition is even worse. This is true for any and all recreational drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, caffeine, heroin and even gambling and prostitution (the last two may not traditionally be thought of as drugs, but their effects on those who become addicted to them suggests that they belong in that list).

Prohibition is always more harmful than regulation.

 

[southernhybrid]

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

The will of the people is more powerful than government.

Organised crime just steps in to the market opportunity that that will creates.

The smart position on any recreational drug is to allow it, regulate it, and tax it. Unregulated use causes societal harm. Prohibition is even worse. This is true for any and all recreational drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, caffeine, heroin and even gambling and prostitution (the last two may not traditionally be thought of as drugs, but their effects on those who become addicted to them suggests that they belong in that list).

Prohibition is always more harmful than regulation.

I totally agree with all of that.

I would prefer to take the same road as Portugal and either make all drugs legal or decriminalize them. I think it's insane to lock people up for using drugs and I think it's insane to tell people what they can do or not do with their bodies. As long as they aren't using and driving etc. and as long as we try to keep drugs away from teens and very young adults, I have no problem with whatever substances people want to use. I'd prefer regulation, safe places to use and more money for rehab for those who want to stop using. I see so many people in my community that appear to be meth addicts. Some of them are homeless. Why not help them instead of condemning them or locking them up? Portugal has had less problems with drug abuse since they decriminalized usage. Prohibition is a horrible idea, imo. It's as bad as telling people who they can have sex with or what religion they can or can't practice.

I saw a piece on the news last week about a place that had safe places for heroin users. They supplied clean needles and safe places to use instead of forcing addicts to go shoot up under a bridge or in some unsafe space. Some people even live normal lives as addicts. When it comes to sex, drugs and rock and roll, I guess I'm pretty libertarian, but not when it comes to regulating and spending money to help people.

Prisons are expensive and harsh. Addicts should never be punished just for using. Okay. That's my rant. Oh wait. I forgot. As a former nurse, I hate the draconian policies that have prevented so many people who suffer from chronic pain, especially older adults, form getting adequate relief from their pain through the use of narcotic drugs. I'm beginning to see a lot more health care professionals becoming very outraged over the fact that the government is forbidding them to prescribe adequate pain relief. Only 6% of those who take opioids for pain develop issues with addiction, but the other 94% is being denied something that can improve their quality of life. Jesus. Now I'm really on a rant. My late father took very strong narcotics for pain, for the last 20 years of his life. He died at the age of 87, so I doubt the drugs shortened his life, since he outlived all of his brothers, who never used these drugs. Okay. I'm done this time.

 

[Politesse]

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

The will of the people is more powerful than government.

Organised crime just steps in to the market opportunity that that will creates.

The smart position on any recreational drug is to allow it, regulate it, and tax it. Unregulated use causes societal harm. Prohibition is even worse. This is true for any and all recreational drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, caffeine, heroin and even gambling and prostitution (the last two may not traditionally be thought of as drugs, but their effects on those who become addicted to them suggests that they belong in that list).

Prohibition is always more harmful than regulation.

An interesting perspective. The "will of the people" has created quite a few black markets over the years; is it your feeling that all of these activities ought to be normalized and regulated rather than banned? Thinking of some of the more lucrative black markets in the US, would you say that the "will" of the populace justifies the legalization (but constitutional fiat) of:

Archaeological looting?
Fraudulent use of trademarked branding to sell knock off goods as genuine?
Poaching of endangered plants and animals?
Identity theft?
Hired killing?​

Or is it just drugs for some reason? If so, what is the difference?

 

[bilby]

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

The will of the people is more powerful than government.

Organised crime just steps in to the market opportunity that that will creates.

The smart position on any recreational drug is to allow it, regulate it, and tax it. Unregulated use causes societal harm. Prohibition is even worse. This is true for any and all recreational drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, caffeine, heroin and even gambling and prostitution (the last two may not traditionally be thought of as drugs, but their effects on those who become addicted to them suggests that they belong in that list).

Prohibition is always more harmful than regulation.

An interesting perspective. The "will of the people" has created quite a few black markets over the years; is it your feeling that all of these activities ought to be normalized and regulated rather than banned? Thinking of some of the more lucrative black markets in the US, would you say that the "will" of the populace justifies the legalization (but constitutional fiat) of:

Archaeological looting?
Fraudulent use of trademarked branding to sell knock off goods as genuine?
Poaching of endangered plants and animals?
Identity theft?
Hired killing?​

Or is it just drugs for some reason? If so, what is the difference?

The difference is that we shouldn't ban activities that directly harm only the adult who chooses to engage in that activity.

It's not rocket surgery.

The will of the people not to be harmed exceeds the will of a minority to defraud them, for example.

Of course, prohibitionists like to look at indirect harm (drug addicts steal to support their habit!) - but the reality is that such indirect harms are almost always lower in a 'regulated but legal' system than under prohibition. Prohibition amplifies the indirect harms to society. That's OK when there's a corresponding reduction in direct harm to society. But in the case of substance abuse, there isn't and cannot be.

 

[Politesse]

An interesting perspective. The "will of the people" has created quite a few black markets over the years; is it your feeling that all of these activities ought to be normalized and regulated rather than banned? Thinking of some of the more lucrative black markets in the US, would you say that the "will" of the populace justifies the legalization (but constitutional fiat) of:

Archaeological looting?
Fraudulent use of trademarked branding to sell knock off goods as genuine?
Poaching of endangered plants and animals?
Identity theft?
Hired killing?​

Or is it just drugs for some reason? If so, what is the difference?

The difference is that we shouldn't ban activities that directly harm only the adult who chooses to engage in that activity.

It's not rocket surgery.

The will of the people not to be harmed exceeds the will of a minority to defraud them, for example.

Of course, prohibitionists like to look at indirect harm (drug addicts steal to support their habit!) - but the reality is that such indirect harms are almost always lower in a 'regulated but legal' system than under prohibition. Prohibition amplifies the indirect harms to society. That's OK when there's a corresponding reduction in direct harm to society. But in the case of substance abuse, there isn't and cannot be.

I think you would have quite a case on your hands trying to establish that alcoholics do more harm to themselves than they do to others. The drug is not that harmful to the individual who is using it, at least over the short term, and even over the long term, you are likely to get away with a drinking habit for quite a while before you encounter any negative symptoms at all. But it can immediately make that person dangerous to others.

Also, this seems like a very different argument ("A thing should be legal if it only hurts one person") than the one you made above ("A thing should be legal if 'the people' want it, as evidenced by whether criminal elements will provide it if it is banned").

 

[skepticalbip]

I think you would have quite a case on your hands trying to establish that alcoholics do more harm to themselves than they do to others. The drug is not that harmful to the individual who is using it, at least over the short term, and even over the long term, you are likely to get away with a drinking habit for quite a while before you encounter any negative symptoms at all. But it can immediately make that person dangerous to others.

There is absolutely no reason not to hold someone legally responsible and liable who harms another while drunk. That is quite different than a law disallowing them from getting drunk. The first is a false assumption that anyone who drinks will commit harm to others.

For instance, a law against driving while drunk is reasonable because of the imminent danger to others. Someone who drinks and presents no threat to others (the overwhelming majority of those who drink) is a very different matter. It is the actions that threaten others that should be regulated not the drinking. For instance: emailing should not be banned even though many traffic accidents are caused by people emailing while driving. It is emailing while driving that should be banned.

 

[bilby]

I think you would have quite a case on your hands trying to establish that alcoholics do more harm to themselves than they do to others. The drug is not that harmful to the individual who is using it, at least over the short term, and even over the long term, you are likely to get away with a drinking habit for quite a while before you encounter any negative symptoms at all. But it can immediately make that person dangerous to others.

There is absolutely no reason not to hold someone legally responsible and liable who harms another while drunk. That is quite different than a law disallowing them from getting drunk. The first is a false assumption that anyone who drinks will commit harm to others.

For instance, a law against driving while drunk is reasonable because of the imminent danger to others. Someone who drinks and presents no threat to others (the overwhelming majority of those who drink) is a very different matter. It is the actions that threaten others that should be regulated not the drinking. For instance: emailing should not be banned even though many traffic accidents are caused by people emailing while driving. It is emailing while driving that should be banned.

^That.

Drinking doesn't 'immediately make that person dangerous to others'. Most drunks aren't even a particular danger to themselves, and are no danger at all to others.

Drunk people who assault, rape, or kill, others almost invariably break laws that exist in the absence of prohibition. By all means lobby to strengthen those laws, if you feel that they are too lenient. But it's crazy to legislate against a behaviour that most can do without harming others, rather than legislating against the harmful behaviour itself.

You might as well ban sex, because sex leads to babies, some of whom grow up to become murderers.

Ban sex, and you can completely eliminate murder in less than a century.

 

[southernhybrid]

I doubt that most alcoholics are dangerous, as long as they don't drink and drive. One of my grandfathers was an alcoholic, but he was always a cheerful funny guy. I never saw him drunk. Imo, he used drinking as a way to self medicate. I think he had a lot of anxiety or nervousness and the drinks calmed him down. He was also a very heavy smoker and he died at the age of 70 secondary to liver and lung cancer. I don't know any details of his medical condition as he died over fifty years ago. I've had alcoholic patients that still drank a lot, but I don't remember any of them being aggressive or nasty. If we ban ETOH, should we ban sugar too? A lot of people eat or drink excessive amounts of sugar. I've worked with young women that literally drank over 2 liters of soft drinks per day. They were all obese and several developed diabetes and hypertension by the time they were in their forties. You can't make people have healthy habits.

Plus, I would think we all by know that prohibition doesn't work. If it did, the opioid crisis would be settling down by now because it's extremely difficult to get narcotics prescribed by a doctor, at least in the US. Most people using are using illegal sources of these drugs, which is far more dangerous, due to the uncertainty of the source or content of these drugs. Rather than prohibiting drugs, maybe we should be asking what it is about living in the world these days is making so many people turn to dangerous drugs. This isn't just a problem in the US. It's world wide, but I would guess that it's worse in some places than in others. People who drink to excess are often self medicating or trying to escape their miserable lives. Prohibition never stopped people from drinking. It just made the sources of alcohol illegal.

 

[Tharmas]

As a recovered alcoholic and drug abuser, I agree largely with SoHy and bilby.

I was drinking alcoholically as a teenager. Alcohol has always been my drug of choice. However before I was twenty-one, I also started using other drugs because alcohol was controlled and therefore relatively difficult for me to get a hold of. Marijuana was a lot easier for me to come by. As were speed, psychedelics, opioids, you name it.

There are of course people who abuse substances to a great degree. I know, I was one of them. I believe increasing public education about this topic, rather than running an expensive and entirely ineffective “war on drugs,” would go a long way to alleviate societal problems caused by abusers. Hell, I was in my thirties before it dawned on me that I was actually a substance abuser and that this was a common problem that could be mitigated or eliminated for me if I was willing to make an effort.

What happened was this: I received a DWI and among the various punishments (fine, community service, etc.) was the requirement that I attend six alcohol awareness lectures. These lectures were given by an engaging and very funny speaker of about my age who claimed to be an alcoholic with five years sobriety. At first I didn’t believe him. I thought either he was lying about his sobriety or he wasn’t a True Drinker. However, listening to him talk about his experiences and share his insights on the alcoholic mind, I was gradually won over. For the first time I realized that there really was such a thing as alcoholism, that there were various ways of defining it, and by most definitions I was one.

I did not sober up immediately. However I was given a framework for measuring myself against other people and against my own self-deceptions. A few years later, when I finally realized I’d had enough to drink, I had a model for a sober life. Such is the power of a little education. If I’d been given those insights ten of fifteen years earlier, they might have made an even bigger difference to my life.

 

[Coleman Smith]

As a Casualty Claims Adjuster for 40 years I handled more alcohol related fatalities than any other drug.

 

[lpetrich]

I think that we need antidotes for a lot of recreational drugs. I'm not saying that they don't exist, just that whatever ones exist have not gotten the publicity that I think that they deserve.

Researchers are creating an antidote for alcohol poisoning

A team of researchers from universities in California and China is developing a pair of pills that break down alcohol in a person’s bloodstream. In a recently published white paper the group successfully demonstrated that it’s possible to speed up the sobriety process by aiding the liver in processing ethanol.

How it works: The antidote is delivered in the form of two separate nanocapsules. The first delivers a pair of enzymes that convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, and the second contains an enzyme that converts acetaldehyde into acetate. This is basically how the body processes booze (ethanol) anyway — the pills just speed the process up.

CH3-CH2OH -> CH3-CHO -> CH3-COOH (the vinegar acid)

An antidote for opioids, like heroin:  Naloxone

 

[bilby]

I think that we need antidotes for a lot of recreational drugs. I'm not saying that they don't exist, just that whatever ones exist have not gotten the publicity that I think that they deserve.

Researchers are creating an antidote for alcohol poisoning

A team of researchers from universities in California and China is developing a pair of pills that break down alcohol in a person’s bloodstream. In a recently published white paper the group successfully demonstrated that it’s possible to speed up the sobriety process by aiding the liver in processing ethanol.

How it works: The antidote is delivered in the form of two separate nanocapsules. The first delivers a pair of enzymes that convert alcohol into acetaldehyde, and the second contains an enzyme that converts acetaldehyde into acetate. This is basically how the body processes booze (ethanol) anyway — the pills just speed the process up.

CH3-CH2OH -> CH3-CHO -> CH3-COOH (the vinegar acid)

An antidote for opioids, like heroin:  Naloxone

Just as long as the second phase dominates the first. Acetaldehyde is one of the major contributors to making you feel so unbelievably awful when you have a bad hangover. A tablet that boosted the first phase only - or even just fractionally more than it boosted the second phase - would be horrific.

On the other hand the second phase drug would make quite an effective hangover cure - with the risk of unintended consequences. I suspect a lot of people would get drunk a lot more often if there was a really effective hangover cure on the market.

 

[ronburgundy]

We did try it. And apparently gave up on it because organized crime is more powerful than government at the end of the day.

The will of the people is more powerful than government.

Organised crime just steps in to the market opportunity that that will creates.

The smart position on any recreational drug is to allow it, regulate it, and tax it. Unregulated use causes societal harm. Prohibition is even worse. This is true for any and all recreational drugs, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, caffeine, heroin and even gambling and prostitution (the last two may not traditionally be thought of as drugs, but their effects on those who become addicted to them suggests that they belong in that list).

Prohibition is always more harmful than regulation.

An interesting perspective. The "will of the people" has created quite a few black markets over the years; is it your feeling that all of these activities ought to be normalized and regulated rather than banned? Thinking of some of the more lucrative black markets in the US, would you say that the "will" of the populace justifies the legalization (but constitutional fiat) of:

Archaeological looting?
Fraudulent use of trademarked branding to sell knock off goods as genuine?
Poaching of endangered plants and animals?
Identity theft?
Hired killing?​

Or is it just drugs for some reason? If so, what is the difference?

The difference is that those things are the will of only a small % of people and against the will of the majority, whereas recreational drug use has been the will of the majority of human beings since they were smart enough to figure out how to identify or create them.