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Question: Why has smoking all but been extinguished and is now viewed as gross and trashy (as it should), while alcohol has retained its glamour? Do governments

Question: Why has smoking all but been extinguished and is now viewed as gross and trashy (as it should), while alcohol has retained its glamour? Do governments need to start mandating pictures of people with alcohol poisoning on every bottle and can? Do restaurants need to start banning alcohol from their venues?

logicchains 4y ago
Alcohol in moderation is much less dangerous than smoking in moderation.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Driving is an exception.
thrown_22 4y ago
Second hand smoke. You can get cancer from just being around people who smoke. Not so much for people who drink.
XorNot 4y ago
Someone drinking scotch at their table doesn't cause me to drink it second hand across the room, and stain my clothes, furniture and hair. If smokers could do it without contaminating their whole environment no one would care.
tyingq 4y ago
Big tobacco had a large portion of it's money and power taken away. Politicians probably also know what happened last time with alcohol prohibition and thus just toss it on the pile of things to hard to solve for now.
colechristensen 4y ago
Smoking indoors has a direct and significant effect on people who have no choice in the matter. The “gross and trashy” attitude for an occasional smoker doesn’t really exist all that widely, but a few people are really into it. The weird binge drinking attitude of Americans needs to be toned down but it’s really a cultural thing encouraged with the high legal drinking age and various inhibitions against, say, a beer at lunch. For most people there’s nothing at all wrong with light or occasionally moderate drinking.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Certain forms of alcohol (wine & beer & formerly mead) consumption run deep in European (at least) culture. Like, almost 10,000 years deep. They're part of a bundle of cuisine and agricultural traditions. It is possible for most people to consume them responsibly and in moderation. Obviously there are outliers, and distilled and budget alcohol is trickier. But there is an avenue for "respectable" use of the commodity. Cigarettes by contrast are an industrial product explicitly made to be addictive. I'd guess? at least half of people who start to consume them become addicted and it becomes habitual. (Though I should say I and others I know who 'smoked' recreationally @ college age at clubs etc never did become addicted, or quit fairly easily) Tobacco itself also has deep cultural roots; ritually among indigenous North Americans, and also among post-colonial Europeans&North Americans in pipe tobacco and cigars. But that's not the same thing at all as cigarettes. I smoke a pipe now and then during the summer, and it rarely if ever leads to cravings.
PopAlongKid 4y ago
>Do restaurants need to start banning alcohol from their venues? No, otherwise many of them would go out of business.
uncletaco 4y ago
Because they tried to ban alcohol before and it didn't go too well.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Alcohol (ethanol) when used properly is a very effective medicine. It blocks several ion channels linked to disease, like the Voltage Gated Calcium Ion Channels. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8894851/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8894851/ Nicotine is another such drug and relieves some symptoms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer possibly though its affect on AcH receptors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_receptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept... The problem is not the substance but the culture which is formed around the substance. My grandfather drank Vodka everyday of his happy life and lived till he was 98. I rely on Vodka as part of my medicine if if you take that away from me I will be very upset and sick.
300bps 4y ago
This can't be a serious response. If it is, I think there would be more societal good if we put pictures of clogged arteries on restaurant menus from people overeating calories.
hattmall 4y ago
20 years ago, if you were over 40 you may have known someone, or known someone personally but secondhand that died from alcohol related reasons, maybe even more than one, especially considering drunken driving. But you definitely knew multiple people who died from smoking, and you almost certainly witnessed their slow decline through lung cancer, emphysema or other smoking related illnesses. In many cases you knew more people that died from smoking than all other things combined. Also the benefits of smoking vs alcohol aren't even comparable, alcohol is the foundation of advanced social civilizations. Smoking let's you take short breaks from labor. It's was cigarettes in particular as well as social pipe smoking isn't / wasn't nearly as bad.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Smoking makes you smell terrible even when you aren't holding a cigarette. Young people in America never picked up the habit in the first place because of anti-tobacco education, and not being desensitized to the smell, started gagging around people who still smoke. The smell, and the second-hand smoke issue, both make smoking viscerally offensive to most of those who don't. > Do restaurants need to start banning alcohol from their venues? Restaurants make more money selling booze than they ever made selling tobacco, so there is a lot of political pressure for this to not happen. Not just money from selling the booze itself, but from all the other irresponsible purchases drunk people make. Who's going to spend $25 for a ham and cheese sandwich if they're not drunk?

logicchains 4y ago

Alcohol in moderation is much less dangerous than smoking in moderation.

fomine3 4y ago
Driving is an exception.

thrown_22 4y ago

Second hand smoke. You can get cancer from just being around people who smoke. Not so much for people who drink.

XorNot 4y ago

Someone drinking scotch at their table doesn't cause me to drink it second hand across the room, and stain my clothes, furniture and hair. If smokers could do it without contaminating their whole environment no one would care.

tyingq 4y ago

Big tobacco had a large portion of it's money and power taken away. Politicians probably also know what happened last time with alcohol prohibition and thus just toss it on the pile of things to hard to solve for now.

colechristensen 4y ago

Smoking indoors has a direct and significant effect on people who have no choice in the matter. The “gross and trashy” attitude for an occasional smoker doesn’t really exist all that widely, but a few people are really into it. The weird binge drinking attitude of Americans needs to be toned down but it’s really a cultural thing encouraged with the high legal drinking age and various inhibitions against, say, a beer at lunch. For most people there’s nothing at all wrong with light or occasionally moderate drinking.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

Certain forms of alcohol (wine & beer & formerly mead) consumption run deep in European (at least) culture. Like, almost 10,000 years deep. They're part of a bundle of cuisine and agricultural traditions. It is possible for most people to consume them responsibly and in moderation. Obviously there are outliers, and distilled and budget alcohol is trickier. But there is an avenue for "respectable" use of the commodity. Cigarettes by contrast are an industrial product explicitly made to be addictive. I'd guess? at least half of people who start to consume them become addicted and it becomes habitual. (Though I should say I and others I know who 'smoked' recreationally @ college age at clubs etc never did become addicted, or quit fairly easily) Tobacco itself also has deep cultural roots; ritually among indigenous North Americans, and also among post-colonial Europeans&North Americans in pipe tobacco and cigars. But that's not the same thing at all as cigarettes. I smoke a pipe now and then during the summer, and it rarely if ever leads to cravings.

PopAlongKid 4y ago

>Do restaurants need to start banning alcohol from their venues? No, otherwise many of them would go out of business.

uncletaco 4y ago

Because they tried to ban alcohol before and it didn't go too well.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Alcohol (ethanol) when used properly is a very effective medicine. It blocks several ion channels linked to disease, like the Voltage Gated Calcium Ion Channels. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8894851/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8894851/ Nicotine is another such drug and relieves some symptoms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer possibly though its affect on AcH receptors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_receptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept... The problem is not the substance but the culture which is formed around the substance. My grandfather drank Vodka everyday of his happy life and lived till he was 98. I rely on Vodka as part of my medicine if if you take that away from me I will be very upset and sick.

300bps 4y ago

This can't be a serious response. If it is, I think there would be more societal good if we put pictures of clogged arteries on restaurant menus from people overeating calories.

hattmall 4y ago

20 years ago, if you were over 40 you may have known someone, or known someone personally but secondhand that died from alcohol related reasons, maybe even more than one, especially considering drunken driving. But you definitely knew multiple people who died from smoking, and you almost certainly witnessed their slow decline through lung cancer, emphysema or other smoking related illnesses. In many cases you knew more people that died from smoking than all other things combined. Also the benefits of smoking vs alcohol aren't even comparable, alcohol is the foundation of advanced social civilizations. Smoking let's you take short breaks from labor. It's was cigarettes in particular as well as social pipe smoking isn't / wasn't nearly as bad.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Smoking makes you smell terrible even when you aren't holding a cigarette. Young people in America never picked up the habit in the first place because of anti-tobacco education, and not being desensitized to the smell, started gagging around people who still smoke. The smell, and the second-hand smoke issue, both make smoking viscerally offensive to most of those who don't. > Do restaurants need to start banning alcohol from their venues? Restaurants make more money selling booze than they ever made selling tobacco, so there is a lot of political pressure for this to not happen. Not just money from selling the booze itself, but from all the other irresponsible purchases drunk people make. Who's going to spend $25 for a ham and cheese sandwich if they're not drunk?