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Yes, maybe in one focus they are outliers, but the assumptions and parameters of the statistic should be qualified before dismissing the true harm alcohol cause
by eggy 10y ago
Yes, maybe in one focus they are outliers, but the assumptions and parameters of the statistic should be qualified before dismissing the true harm alcohol causes. It's like the 'how would you like to die' game, slow or fast.
A DUI can be fatal on your first drunk at any age. I know personally of a college roommates brother, who was a straight A student, and got drunk for the third time in his life, and wound up killing somebody with his car. He went away for manslaughter. I'd say the side-effect there was pretty 'oh boy' for him and the victim. Think of how many people you may have seen go into a car after a few drinks, and how many of them actually got pulled over or fined for DUI. A lot of people drive under the influence and fly below the radar of the statistics. I have acquaintances and business associates who have been doing it for years.
Heroin and meth are stigmatized, and not a industrially-produced, government-controlled product like alcohol. They are almost always impure with other deleterious ingredients. Pure heroin used to be released on purpose in my old neighborhood in the 70s and 80s under somebody's 'brand' to hype sales of their 'product' for a few weeks even at the expense of a few overdoses.
Alcohol is under government regulation per % of alcohol per type of beverage, health inspections, and additives. People have a casual drink at lunch, but you don't see somebody whip out a needle at a casual business lunch, so meth and heroin tend to be relegated to dark alleys, loners at home, parties, etc...
The typical photo of a toothless, emaciated person comes from the side-effects of societal stigmatization, remaining in the shadow of crime, and less acceptance for that type of substance. There are plenty accounts of functional heroin addicts, and I knew/know a few personally. Their colleagues would never know. They eat right, go to work, and just use weekly and sometimes daily.
There are 17 times as many alcoholics as meth addicts per a 2012 study [1]. And alcohol kills slowly. Even the healthiest person who has 3 or more drinks a day is putting mileage on their body, the liver in particular, not to mention the mental effects. Choose your poison - one's government and socially embraced, the other(s) are associated with criminals and 'addicts'.
For a quick, non-academic feel of what I am trying to convey, watch and compare 'Requiem for A Dream' with any of the 'Hangover' movies. Can you find a meth/heroin movie like the 'Hangover' movies? A comedy that a broad range of people view and laugh at. Why not? The movie has what, 2 sequels already?
[1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-scope-methamphetamine-abuse-in-united-states https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/meth...
- misja111 10y agoDuring the 80's and the early 90's, the city of Zurich (Switzerland) had an area where the use of hard drugs was legal. Eventually, in '91, the area was closed because the consequences were disastrous. See for instance: http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/extern/storytelling/needletrauma/chapter1/ http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/extern/storytelling/needletrauma... I'm not saying that the use of alcohol is harmless, and surely there will be people who can have an almost normal life while using hard drugs, but the stigma that hard drugs have is not coming out of nowhere.
- razakel 10y ago>Can you find a meth/heroin movie like the 'Hangover' movies? Well, there is Trainspotting, but that's a much darker form of comedy...
- soundwave106 10y agoYou are not wrong in your assessment of some of the unfairness of the stigmatization, but alcohol does have some advantages that led to this position. A) It's "more than just a drug", it's a food. It's actually a food that can taste quite good to be honest. Many other things (especially synthetics) in contrast taste very nasty (usually very bitter). B) Alcohol has a pretty good dose-response curve. In contrast, dose-response issues are a problem with most synthetics and even injection oriented drugs like heroin -- it is usually "all at once" being difficult to dose any other way. As a result, it is more difficult to build up to a desired level of effect without going overboard. The stimulant of choice in most of the world is not meth, it is either coffee or tea. These have similar advantages that alcohol does (moreso actually since neither are as damaging or addictive). Consequently, coffee or tea is actually far more socially integrated, and less regulated than alcohol! I have heard of people using synthetic stimulants in a kind of similar way one would have a few beers at a party (eg as a pep up, to get through a cram or all nighter etc.), but usually when I hear about that it's something like Adderall (aka government regulated, mg clearly stated, etc. amphetamine). Using such off-label is the same sort of illegal in a way, but it seems to have far less social stigma. Meth has medical uses at lower dose, but stimulant abuse (which due to stuff like Adderall is probably the main case for meth) is all about the "euphoric" dose. That dose is less like someone is having a few beers at a party and more like going for an entire fifth of hard liquor in short order. At that level, damage occurs for any drug pretty fast. But certainly, there's some additional social / class issues that exaggerate the impact of many recreational chemicals in people's minds. Cannabis after all has a pretty good dose/response curve, and is not terribly offensive in taste, yet for a long time it had a huge stigma as well.