Nanny state on booze

[rousseau]

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.

I always figured it and other drugs are about escapism.

Easy to forget about the harsher aspects of reality when you can turn your brain off.

 

[rousseau]

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.

Same in Ontario, although our provincial government just opened up beer sales to supermarkets. Sounds great if any of the beers I drank were offered.

Classically, we've had 'The Beer Store' which is privately owned, the 'LCBO' which is government run, and 'The Wine Store' which I'm not sure about. The LCBO is far and away the best place to buy quality booze, whether liquor, wine, or beer. The Wine Store and The Beer Store are more for functioning alcoholics who like to swill mass amounts of cheap alcohol.

 

[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.

I always figured it and other drugs are about escapism.

Easy to forget about the harsher aspects of reality when you can turn your brain off.

well yes, that's exactly what i said - liquid mental retardation.
the more you ingest, the more stupid you become - in sufficient quantities you basically have down syndrome, and can move even further down the IQ spectrum if you keep going.

my original point was to ronburgandy who tried to paint alcohol as this fun jaunty party juice that people only ever use because they want to because it's so fun, which i think is utter and complete bullshit based on my personal experience with alcohol and with drunks, and that's the prevalent point to it.

 

[bilby]

Is it just me, or does anyone else read the thread title and immediately think of this image?

 

[DrZoidberg]

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.

Minute amounts of alcohol raises cortisol levels. People typically use alcohol to self medicate against stress. But it has the opposite effect. The list of negatives is pretty fucking long. With no or questionable positives.

I still think the government should stay the fuck away from regulating consumption. But get your facts straight. Alcohol is incredibly damaging. Has all kinds of bad effects, both physically and mentally. There's quite a few drugs that are illegal yet are a lot less damaging than alcohol.

Speaking of that. I'm drunk. I should go to bed.

 

[Bronzeage]

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.

You really need to have been drunk at least once to participate in this discussion, or we'll have to bring Plato's Analogy of the Cave into this.

However, you are correct about alcohol being liquid mental retardation. As I said in a previous post, we are talking about ingesting a toxic compound in small amounts. As I also said, the norm of consumption is a purely cultural standard. I come from a home of teetotalling Methodists out of North Carolina. It was a shock when we moved to Louisiana, where even the Baptists drink liquor and don't try to conceal it from one another.

It would be interesting to see the effects of putting alcohol in the same pit of iniquity as tobacco. Once it was established that smoking was in fact, "hazardous to your health", it did not take much effort to force people to consider the health of other people and make them stop smoking in place where others had no choice but to inhale.

The idea that we could vilify alcohol the way we have treated tobacco is actually an old idea, and we tried it once before. The driving force to ban the production and sale of alcohol was not for the damage it did to the drinker, but for the effects in had on the family, and society in general. I don't think it's realistic to expect something like that to happen again.

 

[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.

Minute amounts of alcohol raises cortisol levels. People typically use alcohol to self medicate against stress. But it has the opposite effect. The list of negatives is pretty fucking long. With no or questionable positives.

I still think the government should stay the fuck away from regulating consumption. But get your facts straight. Alcohol is incredibly damaging. Has all kinds of bad effects, both physically and mentally. There's quite a few drugs that are illegal yet are a lot less damaging than alcohol.

Speaking of that. I'm drunk. I should go to bed.

Which facts do you imagine I need to get straight?

Nothing in my post suggests that I think alcohol is not damaging. I am saying that the UK guidelines do nothing useful to mitigate that damage. People don't follow them, they laugh at them - and with good reason. The guidelines are decoupled from reality.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

You really need to have been drunk at least once to participate in this discussion, or we'll have to bring Plato's Analogy of the Cave into this.

However, you are correct about alcohol being liquid mental retardation. As I said in a previous post, we are talking about ingesting a toxic compound in small amounts. As I also said, the norm of consumption is a purely cultural standard. I come from a home of teetotalling Methodists out of North Carolina. It was a shock when we moved to Louisiana, where even the Baptists drink liquor and don't try to conceal it from one another.

It would be interesting to see the effects of putting alcohol in the same pit of iniquity as tobacco. Once it was established that smoking was in fact, "hazardous to your health", it did not take much effort to force people to consider the health of other people and make them stop smoking in place where others had no choice but to inhale.

The idea that we could vilify alcohol the way we have treated tobacco is actually an old idea, and we tried it once before. The driving force to ban the production and sale of alcohol was not for the damage it did to the drinker, but for the effects in had on the family, and society in general. I don't think it's realistic to expect something like that to happen again.

All compounds are toxic - it is the amount consumed that determines whether that is a problem or not.

 

[Bronzeage]

All compounds are toxic - it is the amount consumed that determines whether that is a problem or not.

Well then, that's different.

 

[rousseau]

I always figured it and other drugs are about escapism.

Easy to forget about the harsher aspects of reality when you can turn your brain off.

well yes, that's exactly what i said - liquid mental retardation.
the more you ingest, the more stupid you become - in sufficient quantities you basically have down syndrome, and can move even further down the IQ spectrum if you keep going.

my original point was to ronburgandy who tried to paint alcohol as this fun jaunty party juice that people only ever use because they want to because it's so fun, which i think is utter and complete bullshit based on my personal experience with alcohol and with drunks, and that's the prevalent point to it.

If you're worried about drinking making people dumb you're drinking with the wrong people.

Drinking at a party with a bunch of young people is a different experience than rounds of whisky between people with self control.

For me, I drink for no other reason than it changes my perspective ever so slightly which is a welcome vacation from sobriety. That and anything harder is too much. After two drinks I'm usually more focused than I was without.

 

[IanSYK]

Well I drink alcoholic drinks because I like the taste.

 

[rousseau]

I like the taste too, but alcohol is an intrinsic part of the experience. Without it, I'd likely just drink water.

It's the same idea as drinking 3 caffeine free coffees per day.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I like the taste too, but alcohol is an intrinsic part of the experience. Without it, I'd likely just drink water.

It's the same idea as drinking 3 caffeine free coffees per day.

Well, I drink alcohol for the midiclorians.

 

[bilby]

I like the taste too, but alcohol is an intrinsic part of the experience. Without it, I'd likely just drink water.

It's the same idea as drinking 3 caffeine free coffees per day.

Well, I drink alcohol for the midiclorians.

Nobody's forcing you

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, I drink alcohol for the midiclorians.

Nobody's forcing you

That went dark-side pretty fast...

 

[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.

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.

You can disagree, but you're just flat out objectively wrong.
Beer has existed at least as long as leavened bread, and other forms of alcohol longer than that. Alcohol has been consumed by a large % of societies since the dawn of civilization, and every past effort to rid society of it (short of using religious violence against those who use it) has done nothing to hinder its popularity. People everywhere have gone to great lengths to find ways to create alcoholic liquids out of just about anything they could find in their environment that would ferment. IOW, its appeal does not rely upon and cannot be notably hindered by culture.

Tobacco has never been vilified to nearly the degree that it was glorified for far longer. Widespread smoking depended on that media glorification and association with a glamorous image, because the intrinsic properties of smoking are insufficient for most people to like it, beyond the "pleasure" of eliminated their withdrawal systems due to chemical addiction, a type and severity of addition that only a fraction of regular alcohol users have. Tobacco popularity depended far far more heavily upon marketing than alcohol every has, since alcohol had wide spread popularity centuries before there was such a thing as marketing.

BTW, war had a lot to do with spreading the smoking addiction. In both WW I and II (and probably other wars since), soldier were given free cigarettes every day. With the stress of battle combined with nothing much to do when you weren't being shot at, they all smoked and got addicted just as planned by the cigarette companies. They came home just as hollywood was glamorizing smoking and helped spread the addiction. The rise and fall of frequent tobacco use was short lived, less than a century, and nothing suggests it will make a comeback.

Also, there is no way to vilify alcohol like cigarettes because they objectively have little in common. Alcohol is not remotely as addictive, except for a subset of the population, most forms it comes in even have nutritional value and positive health properties in moderation (one cig a day is still worse than none and in no way positive), and most importantly, there are no reliable direct harms to others that happen to be standing near you when you have a beer. That last one means there are no moral implications of most drinking, so there can be no villain.

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.

Some of the greatest minds in history have been drinkers.
For most of civilized history, taverns serving alcohol have been a greater benefit to society and relations within a community than church or any other social gathering place. The notion of bars being a place that only young single people go before they "grow up" is a completely recent on almost exclusively American thing.

There are credible historical accounts that argue that the American Revolution may not have happened without the aid of the Taverns and the alcohol consumed there. It is an inherently social drug that for most people fosters positive bonding emotions and lowers inhibitions to lubricate more honest discussions. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" helped spark the revolution. It was the most read book of its time besides the Bible, and the primary place that its ideas were discussed were over beers at the taverns.

Oh, and consistent with the anecdotal relations between intelligent and creative minds and alcohol use, alcohol use up to about .07 abv has actually been shown in double-blind randomized experiments to improve creative problem solving by relaxing people's often too narrow attentional control and allowing less obvious but more effective solutions to a novel problem to enter awareness.


In sum, anyone that tries to seriously prohibit the masses access to alcoholic drinks will meet a very well deserved and justified bloody end, to which the rest of us will raise a glass in celebration.

 

[DrZoidberg]

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.

You can disagree, but you're just flat out objectively wrong.
Beer has existed at least as long as leavened bread, and other forms of alcohol longer than that. Alcohol has been consumed by a large % of societies since the dawn of civilization, and every past effort to rid society of it (short of using religious violence against those who use it) has done nothing to hinder its popularity. People everywhere have gone to great lengths to find ways to create alcoholic liquids out of just about anything they could find in their environment that would ferment. IOW, its appeal does not rely upon and cannot be notably hindered by culture.

You've got a very Western perspective. In large parts of India booze is looked upon with suspicion while weed is not only legal, but the drug of choice.

In any culture there will be one drug which is culturally acceptable and which people will socially partake in to wind down with. When that drug is taken it signals all manner of festive things and is probably necessary. There is no culture that is drug free. Anthropologists have looked. Most likely, historically, we've never taken less drugs than now.

BTW, the main reason why alcohol is so popular around the world isn't it's intoxicating effects, nor it's damages. It's not particularly fun nor safe. It's most likely the fact that of all the recreational drugs out there it's the easiest to dose. It's as simple as that. And that's a good reason we'll keep using it, in spite of it damaging effects.

 

[Philos]

Some of the greatest minds in history have been drinkers.

Ron,

I'll drink to that!

A.

 

[DBT]

A toast to beer, wine and spirits.

 

[Derec]

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.

UK is just getting prepared for the time when it becomes an Islamic Republic and alcohol is banned.

 

[bilby]

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.

UK is just getting prepared for the time when it becomes an Islamic Republic and alcohol is banned.