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After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Not that it was the right choice. However, it i

After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Not that it was the right choice. However, it is very sad how much disease we allow, as a society, without much effort at addressing the root societal causes. These types of diseases kill people. Yet, much of society has normalized the causes. The question, isn't whether or not the some "call" was the right call. That is beside the point. The question should be "what now?" The answer shouldn't be "status quo."

danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Why shouldn't it? There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. The current situation may well be the least bad. I'm not a libertarian but many of their arguments are very reasonable.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  The issue with alcohol in particular is a biochemical one. Ethanol is chronically slightly poisonous, but methanol is acutely very poisonous. If you drink ethanol all your life you may get cirrhosis of the liver and have elevated risks for other diseases, but if you drink even a small amount of pure methanol you’ll go blind or die. So alcohol prohibition decreases chronic disease due to less ethanol consumption, but increases acute disease due to more accidental methanol consumption. At least in populations that don’t already have strong cultural norms against alcohol consumption. Many other vices have this duality of harm, but alcohol’s is particularly one-sided.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    There are a lot of things that are bad for you. I don't think anyone drinking alcohol thinks it's good for them. It doesn't mean we shouldn't let people do it. "Free solo" or whatever it is where people climb without ropes - it's incredibly stupid and we should let people do it. Same for racing fast cars and so on and so on.
- boplicity 4y ago
  > There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. This would be a good argument if alcohol just harmed the people who use it. Unfortunately, the negative affects are wide-ranging, severely affecting many people who do not ever use alcohol. Many of the people that alcohol harms never picked any poison at all.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    "pick your poison" means "it's a choice between two or more bad choices". There is no good choice here.
throw0101c 4y ago
> After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Ken Burns did a good doc on Prohibition in the US: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries) The societal problems that the then-new process of distilling caused were enormous. Previously the strongest drinks were beer (<8%) and wine (<20%), but with high-proof spirits people got into all sorts of problems. Humans/society eventually adapted, but the intervening decades had a lot of people suffering.

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

Why shouldn't it? There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. The current situation may well be the least bad. I'm not a libertarian but many of their arguments are very reasonable.

zarzavat 4y ago
The issue with alcohol in particular is a biochemical one. Ethanol is chronically slightly poisonous, but methanol is acutely very poisonous. If you drink ethanol all your life you may get cirrhosis of the liver and have elevated risks for other diseases, but if you drink even a small amount of pure methanol you’ll go blind or die. So alcohol prohibition decreases chronic disease due to less ethanol consumption, but increases acute disease due to more accidental methanol consumption. At least in populations that don’t already have strong cultural norms against alcohol consumption. Many other vices have this duality of harm, but alcohol’s is particularly one-sided.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  There are a lot of things that are bad for you. I don't think anyone drinking alcohol thinks it's good for them. It doesn't mean we shouldn't let people do it. "Free solo" or whatever it is where people climb without ropes - it's incredibly stupid and we should let people do it. Same for racing fast cars and so on and so on.
boplicity 4y ago
> There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. This would be a good argument if alcohol just harmed the people who use it. Unfortunately, the negative affects are wide-ranging, severely affecting many people who do not ever use alcohol. Many of the people that alcohol harms never picked any poison at all.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  "pick your poison" means "it's a choice between two or more bad choices". There is no good choice here.

throw0101c 4y ago

> After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Ken Burns did a good doc on Prohibition in the US: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries) The societal problems that the then-new process of distilling caused were enormous. Previously the strongest drinks were beer (<8%) and wine (<20%), but with high-proof spirits people got into all sorts of problems. Humans/society eventually adapted, but the intervening decades had a lot of people suffering.