4 ms·

Alcohol is not any better.

by balozi 6y ago

whatshisface 6y ago
Metaphysically maybe but physically, not really.
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Alcohol literally destroys your brain and gives you dementia. It is objectively more physically damaging than opiate usage.
  - omginternets 6y ago
    This is dose-dependent. You're comparing alcohol abuse to heroine use. That's not a fair comparison. You should also examine the proportion of heroin "users" who become abusers. You should then do the same comparison for alcohol use. I'm willing to entertain the notion that the risks of heroin are overblown. I'm even willing to believe it. What seems entirely unsupported by evidence is the notion that alcohol and heroin are in remotely the same league.
    - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
      Look at the data on those who have chronic pain: they are prescribed opiates at high dosages daily (equivalent to extreme abuse), and doctors think this is acceptable. Heroin is essentially just an opiate. They do not show effects as bad as life-long alcohol users, nor obviously abusers. A lot of socially acceptable alcohol use would be called abuse if society was fair about it.
      - omginternets 6y ago
        >they are prescribed opiates at high dosages daily (equivalent to extreme abuse), and doctors think this is acceptable That's an orthogonal concern. That being said, I don't understand your reasoning. Firstly, this is opioid abuse. Granted, the responsibility for this abuse falls on the prescriber rather than the user, but it is nevertheless a pathological pattern of use. Secondly, you've substituted "heroin" for "pharmaceutical-grade opiates" in your argument. The irony is that this supports my position more than yours because it demonstrates that the slope is particularly slippery, even with medical-grade opioids. This point bears repeating: the addictive and toxicological potential of opioid medicine is greater than alcohol. The trend is even less in your favor when we return to the topic at hand: heroin. I share your concern about opioid-based medication, but this argues against your point.
        ajkdhcb2 6y ago
        You didnt say anything at all in this comment about physical consequences, so I am lost in the discussion. Doctors are rationally ok with such prescriptions because the effects are not as bad as alcohol. Simply put: opiate abusers and users don't need liver transplants or get such severe brain damage; alcohol is more damaging in a myriad of ways for both uses and abusers. There is plenty of data supporting this, and it is valid to use data regarding medical grade opiates. The risks of heroin are almost entirely side-effects of the war on drugs rather than the drug itself.
omginternets 6y ago
Good grief, yes it is. It's not nearly as addictive. It's not nearly as deadly. It's much easier to control dosage. It has modes of consumption that are non-pathological. This is typical of the distorted anglo-saxon view of alcohol as a tool for getting flat-out drunk. This is not how most of the world relates to alcohol, nor is it a healthy relationship with it. Honestly, this says more about you than about booze.
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  > It's not nearly as addictive. Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) > It's not nearly as deadly. Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right, but overall alcohol causes way more damage than heroin. While David Nutt ranked heroin as more addictive than alcohol, overall he found alcohol more harmful.[0] Precisely because even though it doesn't harm one as much as heroin, it's way more likely that you harm others with alcohol. > It's much easier to control dosage. Actually no. Lots of things affect gastrointestinal absorption of alcohol. Just compare a few shots on empty stomach vs after a meal. Also don't get me started with the absurdly long and not always obvious list of drug interactions that alcohol has. Heroin, assuming known purity, will work roughly the same, either snorted, smoked or injected. If you make a point about its purity, that's a consequence of its legal status. Most, if not all of the interactions are self-evident (other CNS depressants). > It has modes of consumption that are non-pathological. I guess you have preconceptions about what heroin use implies. How is unwinding after work a pathological use of heroin vs whiskey? > Honestly, this says more about you than about booze. Ah, ad hominem to finish, a classic. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210
  - omginternets 6y ago
    >Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) Indeed it is! You conveniently ignore all alcohol consumers except the ones with dependency problems. >Actually no. Actually, yes! You're arguing that there is variance in absorbtion, and you are right. That is different, however, from e.g. the LD50 or the ability of people to measure dosage accurately. >I guess you have preconceptions about what heroin use implies. You're conveniently ignoring that non-pathological use of heroin is extremely small. It's a rounding error when compared to alcohol usage. You are cherry-picking. > Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) Good thing this has been formally studied >Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right [...] Yes, and people with pools in their back-yards experience more drowning. Color me surprised. You're also leaving out all the incidental damage from heroin use in your analysis. Shall we factor in drug-related murders? How about secondary complications like pneumonia? Again, cherry-picking. >Ah, ad hominem to finish, a classic. An observation, actually. I've rarely seen this level of bad-faith argumentation.
vmchale 6y ago
It's less addictive.

Alcohol is not any better.

by balozi 6y ago

Alcohol is not any better.

whatshisface 6y ago

Metaphysically maybe but physically, not really.

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Alcohol literally destroys your brain and gives you dementia. It is objectively more physically damaging than opiate usage.
- omginternets 6y ago
  This is dose-dependent. You're comparing alcohol abuse to heroine use. That's not a fair comparison. You should also examine the proportion of heroin "users" who become abusers. You should then do the same comparison for alcohol use. I'm willing to entertain the notion that the risks of heroin are overblown. I'm even willing to believe it. What seems entirely unsupported by evidence is the notion that alcohol and heroin are in remotely the same league.
  - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
    Look at the data on those who have chronic pain: they are prescribed opiates at high dosages daily (equivalent to extreme abuse), and doctors think this is acceptable. Heroin is essentially just an opiate. They do not show effects as bad as life-long alcohol users, nor obviously abusers. A lot of socially acceptable alcohol use would be called abuse if society was fair about it.
    - omginternets 6y ago
      >they are prescribed opiates at high dosages daily (equivalent to extreme abuse), and doctors think this is acceptable That's an orthogonal concern. That being said, I don't understand your reasoning. Firstly, this is opioid abuse. Granted, the responsibility for this abuse falls on the prescriber rather than the user, but it is nevertheless a pathological pattern of use. Secondly, you've substituted "heroin" for "pharmaceutical-grade opiates" in your argument. The irony is that this supports my position more than yours because it demonstrates that the slope is particularly slippery, even with medical-grade opioids. This point bears repeating: the addictive and toxicological potential of opioid medicine is greater than alcohol. The trend is even less in your favor when we return to the topic at hand: heroin. I share your concern about opioid-based medication, but this argues against your point.
      - ajkdhcb2 6y ago
        You didnt say anything at all in this comment about physical consequences, so I am lost in the discussion. Doctors are rationally ok with such prescriptions because the effects are not as bad as alcohol. Simply put: opiate abusers and users don't need liver transplants or get such severe brain damage; alcohol is more damaging in a myriad of ways for both uses and abusers. There is plenty of data supporting this, and it is valid to use data regarding medical grade opiates. The risks of heroin are almost entirely side-effects of the war on drugs rather than the drug itself.

omginternets 6y ago

Good grief, yes it is. It's not nearly as addictive. It's not nearly as deadly. It's much easier to control dosage. It has modes of consumption that are non-pathological. This is typical of the distorted anglo-saxon view of alcohol as a tool for getting flat-out drunk. This is not how most of the world relates to alcohol, nor is it a healthy relationship with it. Honestly, this says more about you than about booze.

Uberphallus 6y ago
> It's not nearly as addictive. Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) > It's not nearly as deadly. Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right, but overall alcohol causes way more damage than heroin. While David Nutt ranked heroin as more addictive than alcohol, overall he found alcohol more harmful.[0] Precisely because even though it doesn't harm one as much as heroin, it's way more likely that you harm others with alcohol. > It's much easier to control dosage. Actually no. Lots of things affect gastrointestinal absorption of alcohol. Just compare a few shots on empty stomach vs after a meal. Also don't get me started with the absurdly long and not always obvious list of drug interactions that alcohol has. Heroin, assuming known purity, will work roughly the same, either snorted, smoked or injected. If you make a point about its purity, that's a consequence of its legal status. Most, if not all of the interactions are self-evident (other CNS depressants). > It has modes of consumption that are non-pathological. I guess you have preconceptions about what heroin use implies. How is unwinding after work a pathological use of heroin vs whiskey? > Honestly, this says more about you than about booze. Ah, ad hominem to finish, a classic. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210
- omginternets 6y ago
  >Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) Indeed it is! You conveniently ignore all alcohol consumers except the ones with dependency problems. >Actually no. Actually, yes! You're arguing that there is variance in absorbtion, and you are right. That is different, however, from e.g. the LD50 or the ability of people to measure dosage accurately. >I guess you have preconceptions about what heroin use implies. You're conveniently ignoring that non-pathological use of heroin is extremely small. It's a rounding error when compared to alcohol usage. You are cherry-picking. > Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) Good thing this has been formally studied >Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right [...] Yes, and people with pools in their back-yards experience more drowning. Color me surprised. You're also leaving out all the incidental damage from heroin use in your analysis. Shall we factor in drug-related murders? How about secondary complications like pneumonia? Again, cherry-picking. >Ah, ad hominem to finish, a classic. An observation, actually. I've rarely seen this level of bad-faith argumentation.

vmchale 6y ago

It's less addictive.