Nanny state on booze

[Philos]

Hi,

The chief medical officer of the UK Tory government has cut recommended alcohol limits for men. This was 21 units per week and was reduced (earlier this year) to 14 units per week. Why? Other European countries are far more liberal, with recommendations in most countries ranging from 21 units to 31 units per week. Why do we get the nanny state?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38466507

A sinister development is the medical officer's recent remarks on the similarity between alcohol and smoking. She says, “This plan is a great start. This is a journey. Look at tobacco.” What journey is she talking about? Prohibition?

I don't know how other people feel, but I'm sick of the nanny state telling me what I can and cannot do with my own money.

A.

 

[bigfield]

Do you feel compelled to heed the government's recommendations?

Citing mere recommendations as evidence of a nanny state is hyperbole.

 

[Angry Floof]

Well, it's a recommendation, not a law or anything. The reality is that your body can only take so much alcohol before it becomes a health risk, and neither you or the government gets to dictate that reality. Your government says, "drink less." Shrug.

If they do it because of stupid, fearful ideology, and nothing to do with health and medical reality, then there's something to talk about. From what I understand of your politics there, the Tory party is the party of right wing authoritarian follower types. If yours are like ours, then there's a legitimate concern that a right wing party in power could do a lot to revert to prohibition madness. They simply don't have the critical skills or insight in regard to history to do otherwise. Their ideology teaches them tools of control, and how to be a tool of control. Fear-based, black-and-white, authoritarian moral ideologies offer nothing to foster learning or independent thought.

 

[TSwizzle]

A sinister development is the medical officer's recent remarks on the similarity between alcohol and smoking. She says, “This plan is a great start. This is a journey. Look at tobacco.” What journey is she talking about? Prohibition?

I don't know how other people feel, but I'm sick of the nanny state telling me what I can and cannot do with my own money.

A.

I agree with you. Bunch of authoritarian bastards.

 

[Bronzeage]

One important thing I learned at a fairly young age is, what is considered a "normal" amount of alcohol consumption, depends on the culture.

As with any other cultural norm, everybody thinks theirs is the benchmark. Some think one drink(whatever that means) per day is enough, while others figure anyone who can make it to work on time is just fine.

What is so strange about it all is that we are arguing about self poisoning. Alcohol is a odorless, colorless liquid which is toxic to most living things. We dilute it and flavor it in many different ways, just to make it palatable, and then ingest amounts small enough to not kill us immediately.

And then, when someone comes along and says, "Hey, you know this stuff isn't doing you any good. It would really be better if you didn't swallow so much at one sitting," people get all indignant about being told to stop drinking poison.

 

[bilby]

There's no scientific basis for any of these recommendations.

The 21 units number was arrived at by a small committee of doctors (the alcohol working group of the Royal College of Physicians), who were asked to make a numerical recommendation at short notice, and simply pulled some numbers out of the air that they could agree were a level unlikely to cause long-term harm.

I don't know whether the new guidelines are more soundly based in actual research, but I rather doubt it, and the UK government's publication on this question strongly suggests that it is not. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/writev/1536/ag22.htm

The old guidelines come from the 1987 RCP report 'The medical consequences of alcohol abuse; a great and growing evil' (no hint of any bias in that title), and the new numbers seem to have been arrived at by taking the old ones, and reducing them a bit, because the government wanted some lower numbers.

The real drinking habits of problem drinkers in the UK are so far removed from these numbers (even the old version) as to be a complete joke.

The whole thing is a perfect example of government failure to grasp that people don't care about their recommendations. It's as though some policy wonk at the highways department noticed that drivers habitually travelled at 80mph on a stretch of motorway - 10mph over the limit - and in a serious attempt to reduce traffic speeds decided to put up a 20mph advisory limit sign. A few years later, having noted that drivers still average 80mph, their brilliant plan is to lower the advisory speed limit to 15mph.

They seem not to be able to grasp that they are simply being ignored, and that the numbers they advise are therefore not going to have any effect regardless of what level they recommend.

Idiots.

 

[DBT]

The nanny state is alive and well. First comes recommendation then legislation. A constant stream of new laws, amendments and regulations flowing from the seat (usually from one specific spot) of Government, governing not only the way we are supposed to live according to the rules, but spilling into how we are to think and feel.

 

[fast]

The reality is that your body can only take so much alcohol [...]

How dare you bring such filth into this sacred lair! You are the reason for the rise in what's to come!

<I don't remember what that might be, but lucky for you, in the morning, it won't matter>

 

[Philos]

A sinister development is the medical officer's recent remarks on the similarity between alcohol and smoking. She says, “This plan is a great start. This is a journey. Look at tobacco.” What journey is she talking about? Prohibition?

I don't know how other people feel, but I'm sick of the nanny state telling me what I can and cannot do with my own money.

A.

I agree with you. Bunch of authoritarian bastards.

TSwizzle,

Right on! Some folks might have missed the comparison between 'recommendation' and statute law. The chief medical officer made her meaning and intentions clear enough in her quoted remarks.

A.

 

[Philos]

The nanny state is alive and well. First comes recommendation then legislation. A constant stream of new laws, amendments and regulations flowing from the seat (usually from one specific spot) of Government, governing not only the way we are supposed to live according to the rules, but spilling into how we are to think and feel.

DBT,



A.

 

[Philos]

There's no scientific basis for any of these recommendations.

The 21 units number was arrived at by a small committee of doctors (the alcohol working group of the Royal College of Physicians), who were asked to make a numerical recommendation at short notice, and simply pulled some numbers out of the air that they could agree were a level unlikely to cause long-term harm.

I don't know whether the new guidelines are more soundly based in actual research, but I rather doubt it, and the UK government's publication on this question strongly suggests that it is not. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmsctech/writev/1536/ag22.htm

The old guidelines come from the 1987 RCP report 'The medical consequences of alcohol abuse; a great and growing evil' (no hint of any bias in that title), and the new numbers seem to have been arrived at by taking the old ones, and reducing them a bit, because the government wanted some lower numbers.

The real drinking habits of problem drinkers in the UK are so far removed from these numbers (even the old version) as to be a complete joke.

The whole thing is a perfect example of government failure to grasp that people don't care about their recommendations. It's as though some policy wonk at the highways department noticed that drivers habitually travelled at 80mph on a stretch of motorway - 10mph over the limit - and in a serious attempt to reduce traffic speeds decided to put up a 20mph advisory limit sign. A few years later, having noted that drivers still average 80mph, their brilliant plan is to lower the advisory speed limit to 15mph.

They seem not to be able to grasp that they are simply being ignored, and that the numbers they advise are therefore not going to have any effect regardless of what level they recommend.

Idiots.

bilby,

Evidence of the lack of hard science lies in the wide variation of recommendations from governments around the world. If there was a reasonable consensus (such as with climate science) then they might be taken more seriously (Oh er hang on..............

On your last point; I think this is why such recommendations can eventually result in law.

A.

 

[Philos]

Well, it's a recommendation, not a law or anything. The reality is that your body can only take so much alcohol before it becomes a health risk, and neither you or the government gets to dictate that reality. Your government says, "drink less." Shrug.

If they do it because of stupid, fearful ideology, and nothing to do with health and medical reality, then there's something to talk about. From what I understand of your politics there, the Tory party is the party of right wing authoritarian follower types. If yours are like ours, then there's a legitimate concern that a right wing party in power could do a lot to revert to prohibition madness. They simply don't have the critical skills or insight in regard to history to do otherwise. Their ideology teaches them tools of control, and how to be a tool of control. Fear-based, black-and-white, authoritarian moral ideologies offer nothing to foster learning or independent thought.

Angry Floof,

Re your second para. Yes, this is why I was concerned by the chief medical officer's comparison between her alcohol 'recommendation' and laws on smoking. She refers to the laws on smoking as an example, but laws and 'recommendations' are not the same. I think it is reasonable to infer some intentions here, on a careful reading of the link provided and her quoted words therein.

A.

 

[TSwizzle]

I agree with you. Bunch of authoritarian bastards.

TSwizzle,

Right on! Some folks might have missed the comparison between 'recommendation' and statute law. The chief medical officer made her meaning and intentions clear enough in her quoted remarks.

A.

The Holyrood government’s plan to introduce a blanket minimum price for alcohol has been backed by the Scottish courts in a ruling hailed by health campaigners as marking “a great day for Scotland’s health”.

The court of session in Edinburgh rejected a challenge by Scotland’s drinks industry, which claimed the plan to set a minimum price at 50p per unit of alcohol – a measure that would see a 70cl bottle of whisky priced at a minimum of £14 – was in breach of European law.

TheGuardian

These fuckers will be into every aspect of your life.

 

[Angry Floof]

Well, it's a recommendation, not a law or anything. The reality is that your body can only take so much alcohol before it becomes a health risk, and neither you or the government gets to dictate that reality. Your government says, "drink less." Shrug.

If they do it because of stupid, fearful ideology, and nothing to do with health and medical reality, then there's something to talk about. From what I understand of your politics there, the Tory party is the party of right wing authoritarian follower types. If yours are like ours, then there's a legitimate concern that a right wing party in power could do a lot to revert to prohibition madness. They simply don't have the critical skills or insight in regard to history to do otherwise. Their ideology teaches them tools of control, and how to be a tool of control. Fear-based, black-and-white, authoritarian moral ideologies offer nothing to foster learning or independent thought.

Angry Floof,

Re your second para. Yes, this is why I was concerned by the chief medical officer's comparison between her alcohol 'recommendation' and laws on smoking. She refers to the laws on smoking as an example, but laws and 'recommendations' are not the same. I think it is reasonable to infer some intentions here, on a careful reading of the link provided and her quoted words therein.

A.

Ah, gotcha. Yes, it is ironic and funny when conservatives complain about a "nanny state" brought about by their own holy rollers that they stupidly allowed to infest their political party. But then, when your ideology is based in cognitive pitfalls, it's automatically vulnerable to diseases like religion.

 

[ronburgundy]

The comparison to smoking shows how dangerously ignorant that politician is of the properties of these drugs, and of human behavior and basic realities of society and interaction. Alcohol effects have properties that have made it part of social interactions in the majority of societies for thousands of years. These same effects make it something that a large % of people take instrinsic pleasure from without the need for social pressure to consume it and without a chemical addiction like smoking where the "pleasure" is mostly avoiding the pain of withdrawal.

Due to this, political efforts to greatly reduce or eliminate alcohol use cannot ever succeed any where similar to the way they have succeeded in greatly reducing smoking.

Also, the fact that sucking smoke into your lungs is initially done mostly due to social coercion and conformity and that pleasure associations are the result mostly from chemical addiction means it makes more sense than alcohol for government to use public info campaigns to reduce the number who choose to start smoking. Though the info should be science-based.

The fact that a person smoking inherently exposes those around them to dangerous toxins make laws regulating where, when, and how a person can smoke reasonable and definitionally not fascistic any more than laws regulating shooting a gun in random directions in public or near your kids.

While some people try to claim these same things for alcohol, that is bullshit. There is no inherent danger to others who are near a person consuming alcohol. Any associated dangers are highly indirect and contingent upon other volitional actions by the drinker that occur in only a small % of instances and for which drinking is neither neccessary nor near sufficient.

Sadly, the false equivalence that prohibitionists make is aided by the same false equivalence that pseudo-libertarians and conservatives make when they try to argue against any restrictions on smoking with bullshit arguments that the same restrictions should have to apply to alcohol or countless other things that are not comparable for smoking (much like they also do when arguing against gun control).

 

[prideandfall]

The comparison to smoking shows how dangerously ignorant that politician is of the properties of these drugs, and of human behavior and basic realities of society and interaction. Alcohol effects have properties that have made it part of social interactions in the majority of societies for thousands of years. These same effects make it something that a large % of people take instrinsic pleasure from without the need for social pressure to consume it and without a chemical addiction like smoking where the "pleasure" is mostly avoiding the pain of withdrawal.

Due to this, political efforts to greatly reduce or eliminate alcohol use cannot ever succeed any where similar to the way they have succeeded in greatly reducing smoking.

i'm afraid i have to disagree to pretty much every thing said here, though i don't want to be a dick and go on some point-by-point break down, but it largely has to do with my perspective as someone who's never been intoxicated and the numerous observations you can make about alcohol culture once you're outside of it.
anyways, regardless, i do think that if alcohol were systematically villified the way smoking was (including being removed entirely from TV and movies) that it would have a cultural impact not entirely dissimilar to what was had on smoking.

alcohol is simply nothing more and nothing less than liquid mental retardation, and its prevalence is greatly linked to our cultural aversion to smart people and glorification of idiots.

 

[Philos]

alcohol is simply nothing more and nothing less than liquid mental retardation, and its prevalence is greatly linked to our cultural aversion to smart people and glorification of idiots.

pride and fall,

A different view. When I first grasped the weaknesses of Wittgenstein's reductionism it was while quaffing a good bottle of Cotes du Rhone. The penny dropped just at the last glass.

Alex.

 

[prideandfall]

alcohol is simply nothing more and nothing less than liquid mental retardation, and its prevalence is greatly linked to our cultural aversion to smart people and glorification of idiots.

pride and fall,

A different view. When I first grasped the weaknesses of Wittgenstein's reductionism it was while quaffing a good bottle of Cotes du Rhone. The penny dropped just at the last glass.

Alex.

the mentally retarded can still occasionally grasp concepts like normal people.

or are you trying to argue that alcohol does not objectively impair cognitive function?

 

[Philos]

the mentally retarded can still occasionally grasp concepts like normal people.

p@p,

Thank you; now I understand.

A.

 

[gmbteach]

Alex,

At least in the UK you can buy alcohol in the supermarket! We can't. We have to go to a specialised liquor shop for it. But then again, we have drive-thru bottle shops and we also have delivery of alcohol if you order it in enough advance.