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I don't buy this analogy with drinking. Alcohol is fundamentally different. It is critical to reduce the number of people who get addicted to nicotine, because
by Gatsky 7y ago
I don't buy this analogy with drinking. Alcohol is fundamentally different. It is critical to reduce the number of people who get addicted to nicotine, because it is very difficult to get them off it. Despite flaunting the age limit for drinking, I think it is still the case that there are fewer 18 year olds drinking alcohol with the drinking age at 21 than there would be if the drinking age was 18, and in many ways that is all that matters. Your argument would also justify reducing the drinking age to X, because there are some people younger than X that access alcohol illegally. Importantly, a higher drinking age also stops beverage makers from targeting products to younger demographics.
I disagree with the harm minimisation/safety argument because the primary harm minimisation for tobacco products comes from preventing their use at all.
- listenallyall 7y ago>> it is very difficult to get them off it and quitting drinking is easy? AA exists in every corner of the globe, for a reason.
- anoncake 7y agoAlmost everyone who smokes is addicted, not so for alcohol.
- Gatsky 7y agoIf you don’t understand the difference then read these two articles: https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/smoking https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption
- kazinator 7y ago"Smoking deaths typically affect older populations: more than half of deaths occurred in people over 70 years old; 93% were over 50 years." LOL! Death from age-related natural causes also affect older populations. Most of those who die of natural causes are over fifty.
- listenallyall 7y agoNo thanks. What is the point you are trying to make? That alcohol-related vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 16-24 year old Americans? (http://www.faddintl.org/nationalstats.html http://www.faddintl.org/nationalstats.html) For whatever it's worth, smokers generally have 25 years in which to quit, before any serious negative consequences arise (and often more like 40+ years). Alcohol causes massive amounts of physical and emotional damage to young people, directly and also indirectly (inflicted by drinkers onto non-drinkers), much of it fatal.
- Gatsky 7y agoWe are losing the thread here. We are talking about substance abuse disorders. You were arguing that many people are addicted to alcohol as a 'whatabout' counter argument to my point about smoking. The articles I referenced show that firstly, smoking is a significantly bigger cause of harm, despite your contention that smokers have 'a long time to quit'. The reason for this of course is that they don't quit, because they are addicted. This is exactly why we need to stop people from smoking in the first place. Secondly, at the end of the alcohol article, you can see that the prevalence of alcohol use disorders does not increase with alcohol consumption. This is because many people drink alcohol in a non-pathological fashion, even in large amounts (which is nevertheless harmful), and would seem to contradict your argument that alcohol use disorders are a big problem. Even the example you give shows a similar pattern. Most vehicular deaths are in 16-24 year olds, whether alcohol was involved or not. Alcohol compounds the problem, but it doesn't drive it completely. Notice that I am not disagreeing with you that alcohol causes a lot of harm. It does. As I said, alcohol and tobacco are fundamentally different, on neurophysiological, social and cultural levels.