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It's time to put cancer warning labels on alcohol, experts say
- TOP-HACKER 4y ago[flagged]
- d12bb 4y agoWell, we all already know alcohol does more harm than broccoli. If that isn't enough to stop someone drinking it, why would cancer warning labels?
- SonicScrub 4y agoWarning labels were part of an effective strategy to curb smoking. This is from the same playbook. Warning labels on alcohol have been shown to reduce consumption in localized testing, as stated in the article you are commenting on. While most people have some idea that alcohol is had for them, the link between cancer and alcohol is not widely known. This is also reflected upon in the article.
- prvc 4y agoThe "experts" (by the media's reckoning) haven't yet advocated doing this for marijuana products, which bear no cancer warnings, so I think a great deal of cynicism is warranted here.
- pitaj 4y agoThat's because there's not conclusive evidence that smoking only marijuana causes cancer - especially to the same degree as tobacco. While it may seem like "smoke is smoke", that doesn't appear to hold for marijuana - and it's not clear why.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sublinear 4y agoDefinitely not true. Inhaling combustion byproducts is what causes cancer. Marijuana smokers typically just don't inhale as much smoke as tobacco smokers. Nobody chain smokes joints all day unless they're Snoop Dogg or something.
- narag 4y agoI quit tobacco years ago and the last studies I read pointed to smoke and tar, not nicotine, as the specific cause of cancer. But later when vaporizers got popular they changed the tune to "tobacco is bad, no matter how you consume it". Honestly, I don't know which is true. Nobody chain smokes joints all day unless they're Snoop Dogg or something. There are many somethings out there. But vapes are indeed more convenient.
- sublinear 4y agoAt the risk of diminishing my small position in this thread I can only anecdotally state my perspective which is... indeed whatever you're vaping is better than smoking it. To address your comment about nicotine, vaping nicotine salts (what is the standard now; juul, vuse, etc.) is a huge upgrade from cigarettes. My lungs have literally healed. My doctor (who disapproves but admits the difference) and I would love to see a reply refuting this.
- pessimizer 4y agoYour comment doesn't count as conclusive evidence.
- collyw 4y agoOh, they do.
- SonicScrub 4y agoI fail to see how a failure to properly label a different product with the appropriate health warnings is a an argument to also fail with a different one. If a risk exists, proper labelling is warranted regardless of substance. I'd also like to point out that the Canadian Cancer Society (one of the groups highly involved with advocated for labelling) has also issued statements about inhalation (of any substance). So they quite literally have done the thing that you accuse them of having not done.
- pessimizer 4y ago> Warning labels were part of an effective strategy to curb smoking. Raising the prices of cigarettes beyond the means of poor people and passing restrictive laws about smoking in public and private were the only effective strategies against smoking. The warning labels were an intermediate justification, and in the case of Swedish snus, actual misinformation.
- marban 4y agoGoogle broccoli thiocyanate, and enjoy a bottle of red from time to time.
- moistly 4y agoI’d be delighted if everything that was as risky as tobacco, asbestos, alcohol, etc had health warnings. Same with foods: full dietary info, plus excess sugar/fat/etc labelling. Only 25-30% of Canadians know that alcohol carries a cancer risk. A lot of Canadians drink well in excess of “safe” limits. Informing the public allows everyone to make a conscious choice about a significantly risky product. No one knows these things intuitively: they need to encounter that information repeatedly before they will know it well enough to use that information in making a decision. Adding a written warning on the bottle label is a sensible, inexpensive, effective way to accomplish this. I want to be more informed, not less.
- anigbrowl 4y agoWarnings aren't informational, they're motivational. Have you ever seen a health warning with a QR code that links to the data? No you haven't. Alcohol already carries health warnings, adding to them will likely have only marginal effect. I'm not saying that this information shouldn't be in health warnings, but it's worth considering how health and safety warnings and signage are absolutely ubiquitous in modern society. It could be that the consumer warnings are a mediocre substitute for industrial regulation at source - just slap a disclaimer on it to avoid lawsuits and call it a day, so to speak. It's also possible that this leads people to either filter them out or causes them additional levels of stress. I value safety information, but I don't value having it shoved in my face all the time.
- zwieback 4y agoDo other countries already have them? Honestly, it probably wouldn't change my habits but who knows, it might get me from 8 to 7 drinks per week or so. What I find interesting is that it's so much worse for women, moralistic messaging about changing behavior specifically for women could backfire.
- CharlesW 4y agoAccording to https://www.jsad.com/doi/10.15288/jsad.2020.81.284 https://www.jsad.com/doi/10.15288/jsad.2020.81.284, as of 2020 only South Korea does this.
- BurningFrog 4y agoThis will never end. There is a sector of the economy that lives off banning and regulating things, and it will constantly need new prey to prosper. If you think this is good or bad is a separate issue.
- barbazoo 4y agoI hope studying the effects of the things we ingest and publicizing the results never ends, I agree. > There is a sector of the economy that lives off banning and regulating things The economy can't ban anything, what are you referring to here? In fact, nothing is being regulated or banned here.
- Normille 4y agoI can't seem to find any info on whether or not the risk disappears if/when you give up drinking. Or is the DNA roulette wheel already spinning, like it is for people who have been heavy smokers in the past? I think it's going to be harder for people to take on board the idea that any amount of alcohol is bad for you as, intuitively, I still believe that, in moderation, it can have some positive affects such as de-stressing and aiding sleep. Mind you, I suppose you could say some of the same about smoking and I can intuitively accept that any amount of that is bad for you. Well, I've never smoked [tobacco] and [apart from a bit of a 'sociable relapse' over Christmas] haven't drunk for over a year now. So I should live forever!
- claudiawerner 4y agoI'm a heavy drinker and what I've read about alcohol and sleep says that it's bad for your sleep, in particular the quality of REM sleep. Anecdotally I can back that up with my own experience, as I drink before I go to sleep. However, it's much easier to fall asleep after you've been drinking, but that's just because alcohol is a nerve depressant anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_use_and_sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_use_and_sleep
- harshreality 4y agoWhy would you do that? Just to get to sleep easier? There are other, better ways.
- claudiawerner 4y agoI don't know why any particular person would do it, but I don't drink to sleep.
- burke 4y agoThis is the thing that's so tricky about... well, I guess the way our world models in general work. Is drinking bad for you? Yup. Is smoking bad for you? Yup. Is moderate social drinking bad for you? Likely, but definitely less bad for you than slamming a 6-pack nightly. Are there other (mainly socially-mediated) health benefits from moderate social drinking? Plausibly? Probably? Occasional social smoking? Probably in some contexts. If these effects both exist, they can be compared. Do the risk curves intersect? Where? The crossover will land in different places for different people, different circumstances.
- irrational 4y agoI had no idea there was a link between alcohol and cancer. Is this new info for anyone else?
- mrpf1ster 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer
- zwieback 4y agoThanks, the Talk page is especially interesting here.
- zwieback 4y agoYep, new to me but the article doesn't explain much. I assume massive drinking could lead to all sorts of cancers as you're taxing every part of your body. It follows that a bit of drinking would have a small effect but is it enough to really matter?
- zmgsabst 4y agoI’m not sure it follows, eg, a lot of radiation will give you cancer but a minuscule amount may boost health by stimulating an immune response that is overall protective. I could similarly see a single shot of alcohol per week not significantly taxing your system and ending as a net benefit due to, eg, triggering cellular cleanup that also removes accumulated junk.
- this_user 4y agoThis has been pretty well established for a while, and confirmed by the WHO. But for some reason, that fact never seems to have gained much traction.
- aix1 4y agoHere is some literature in case anyone is interested: 1. A 2006 review in The Lancet Oncology: http://drugfree.org.au/images/pdf-files/library/alcohol/CancerAlcohol-LancetOncology.pdf http://drugfree.org.au/images/pdf-files/library/alcohol/Canc... 2. A recent study in The Lancet Oncology: https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full... 3. A meta-analysis of the effects of light drinking on cancer incidence (Annals of Oncology): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923753419368589 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092375341...
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI figure it’s pretty easy enough to show correlation but how many people are self medicating undiagnosed issues? Surely that would significantly color the stats.
- elil17 4y agoIt’s not just correlation. We do have a good reason to expect that alcohol causes cancer. First, we see increased cancer in areas the alcohol and decomposition products touches/interacts with (mouth, esophagus, colon, liver, etc.). The exception is the breast cancer correlation, but there is an explanation for that too (based on a secondary metabolic pathway). We don’t see, for example, alcohol causing lung cancer or brain cancer. Second, we know alcohol breaks down into likely carcinogens.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoThat makes sense. It seems that the main carcinogen of concern is Acetaldehyde which I was unaware of. That's also in milk and fruit juice, but I figure 'the dose makes the poison'. I do think a lot of people are self medicating and really wish that area was better researched.
- elil17 4y agoYeah, we're talking mg/kg of acetaldehyde for apples. You would end up with perhaps 12 grams of acetaldehyde in your system from a single standard drink (probably about 0.85 grams acetaldehyde/gram ethanol). It's like comparing the radiation dose of a banana to a stroll through the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
- doyouevensunbro 4y agoI live in California, and I love it here, but the cancer warnings in everything really do absolutely nothing. They are comical at this point.
- prvc 4y agoPerhaps if the risk were quantified somehow, things would improve? Could be incorporated into the Nutrition Facts label, even.
- TheAceOfHearts 4y agoThe problem with cancer risk labels is that they're never actionable, it's too vague. My Nintendo Switch games include a cancer warning. Am I actually at risk during regular usage or is the risk only if a crush up the cartridge and snort it? And whole restaurants have the cancer warning. Would it be possible to avoid the foods with cancer risks associated with them? AFAIK, some companies even include the label just to be safe.
- nemo44x 4y agoI'm waiting for it to be mandated that doors and windows have cancer labels near the knobs and handles. "WARNING: Opening this window may cause cancer"
- UtahDave 4y agoLast time I visited Disneyland with my kids, there was a sign by the entrance that Disneyland causes cancer. Ok, it said something to the effect that there were substances on the premises known to the State of California that cause cancer. But the end result is that it was not clear WHAT was there that causes cancer, so it basically says Disneyland causes cancer.
- bostik 4y agoMuch like life itself, which is effectively a carcinogen. The longer you are exposed to being alive, the more likely you are to get some type of cancer.
- SonicScrub 4y agoHow our society treats alcohol and tobacco is fascinating to me. Alcohol is known to cause all sorts of terrible health outcomes, yet our society glorifies it's consumption. Getting hammered in college / university is seen as a right of passage. Ads for alcohol are filled with sexy cool people drinking and partying. Our media portrays drinking as cool. Many people could not fathom having a celebratory moment without alcohol. This was exactly where we were with tobacco in the 1950s. Ask a random person today if they think that efforts done to curb tobacco usage we're "good" they would probably say yes. We agree that glorifying tobacco consumption was bad. Attempts to brand tobacco as cool through figures as Joe Camel are viewed as stupid, we are much smarter and more enlightened now. Yet we don't apply the same critical lens to a Budweiser commerical where a guy pops open a bottle and is immediately surrounded by cool friends and beautiful women.
- tptacek 4y agoIt probably has something to do with the near-universal consumption of alcohol stretching back to (check notes) the dawn of human history.
- SonicScrub 4y agoDoing something since the dawn of human history is a poor metric of whether something should be in a glorified position in our modern society.
- VoodooJuJu 4y agoIt's a great metric in determining whether something is Good, per the Lindy effect.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- endisneigh 4y agoviolence also is as old as humanity, so…
- TheAceOfHearts 4y agoOne area where alcohol could be improved is by requiring food labels. Just how much sugar and calories are in your drink? Finding answers to this is a bit opaque, so having a bit more transparency would be great.
- nivenkos 4y agoThis. It's crazy in the UK where normal drinks have to have it, but alcoholic ones are exempt.
- SonicScrub 4y agoCanada as well. It leads to the absurd scenario where non-alcoholic beverages like de-alcoholized wine can sometimes appear less healthy when side by side with the normal stuff on the shelves.
- nerdponx 4y agoI'd also like to see ingredients lists in general. Why is alcohol exempt?
- ozmodiar 4y agoYes! As a diabetic I'm always annoyed that they don't even try to print the carbs on the label. I don't get why alcohol gets a pass when other food and drink have to.
- WalterBright 4y agoAren't alcoholic drinks required to label their percent of alcohol?
- mrguyorama 4y agoInterestingly, some alcoholic beverages in the US now have nutrition facts labels. I don't know if there was a rule change or if they saw the writing on the wall and wanted to opt in to a crappier version to try and delay any rule change or if it was part of the marketing push a few years ago to imply their brand was the only brand with "natural" ingredients or other nonsense. I don't think I've seen a hard alcohol with that label.
- monero-xmr 4y agoThere are a lot of things that are risky that I do all the time. I’m surprised marijuana has such widespread praise given burning organic material, inhaling it deeply, and keeping it for long periods of time in your lungs is obviously dangerous. Grilled and smoked meat - with charred material slowly snaking its way through your intestines - is definitely extremely dangerous. But I enjoy alcohol, I like how it impacts social situations, I like the taste. Jesus did turn water into wine, after all. Traces of beer and wine go back perhaps ten thousand years. It’s not something a warning label will change for me, and we already tried prohibition. Life is hard enough without having to worry about every last damn thing.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoThere are ways to “use marijuana” that don’t involve combustion. The future where a nano infused cannabis drinkable where the high hits and leaves in similar timeframes as alcohol is nearly here.
- iancmceachern 4y agoAnd big brands are getting into it. You can buy a cannabis beverage from the companybthat makes PBR. https://www.pabstlabs.com/ https://www.pabstlabs.com/
- rjbwork 4y agoYou can already buy 99.9% pure cannabinoids and terpenes and mix your own tinctures in MCT and similar oils. You can also buy pre-prepared tinctures. The era is here, really.
- yamtaddle 4y ago> I’m surprised marijuana has such widespread praise given burning organic material, inhaling it deeply, and keeping it for long periods of time in your lungs is obviously dangerous. Edibles :-) > I like the taste That's the part that's hard to completely replace with anything else, for me. I like weed better in basically every other way, but a nice minerally wine or complex whiskey or layered, perfectly-balanced mixed drink... mmm.
- modzu 4y ago"no amount is safe" give me a break
- yamtaddle 4y agoProbably warranted in this case, given the still-treated-as-true-in-pop-culture flawed studies about a drink or two a day being net-beneficial.
- Supermancho 4y agoCant wait to see the warnings on Listerine and medical swabs.
- collyw 4y agoEUA mRNA shots should have a warning, and not legal immunity for the manufacturers.
- Supermancho 4y agoThey definitely should have a warning. The legal immunity was a practical measure, so I can understand that. The issue I have with the immunity is that it stands as an ongoing precedent, if it's never rolled back.
- collyw 4y agoYes, they seem to have taken this as an approval of mRNA technology, despite the trials not actually being complete, skipping important parts (testing for cancers, and testing for where the vaccine ends up in the body). And basically ignoring any adverse events. There are massive signals in VEARS, but they are being ignored, the CDC admitted they weren't actually monitoring this at one point.
- biofox 4y agoAnd yet, meta-analyses have found that wine, particularly red wine, has little effect on many cancers -- or in some cases even a protective effect, such as in prostate cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5909789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5909789/ Lung cancer: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18006934/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18006934/ Renal cell carcinoma: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22516951/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22516951/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25965820/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25965820/ No effect of wine on gastric cancer risk: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716786/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716786/ No effect on colorectal cancer: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30247171/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30247171/ No effect on epithelial ovarian cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895710/
- barbazoo 4y agoThe dose makes the poison. In your first link for example, I couldn't find a definition of what "moderate" consumption even is.
- biofox 4y ago"differences between studies introducing heterogeneous results. Still, all studies had a maximum of one glass of wine per day as moderate consumption."
- Gupie 4y agoBut what is the actual risk? I can't find any specific information. It says in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer that in Europe 10% of cancers in males is due to alcohol, but is this mainly from heavy drinking, the two bottles of whisky a day type? It would be good to know what the risk of moderate drinking is, for example 15 units per week, it would be good if this were in an understandable number like the average years of good health lost.
- asdffdsa 4y agoBlood pressure, for one: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190307081024.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190307081024.h...
- sublinear 4y agoMy liver! The labels do nothing!
- nerdponx 4y agoThis appears to be the actual CCSA study that led to the "no safe amount" conclusion: https://www.ccsa.ca/canadas-guidance-alcohol-and-health-final-report https://www.ccsa.ca/canadas-guidance-alcohol-and-health-fina... I haven't read the report in detail so I can't comment on the methodology. Some salient points: • I don't see an actual recommendation that no alcohol is safe. The conclusion is that there is a continuum of risk, and that 3-6 drinks per week carries "moderate" risk. • The risk model output is presented on Pages 25 (females) and 26 (males). • The risk model appears to include both long-term health risks as well as short-term risks such as injury due to accident or violence that occurred while intoxicated with alcohol. • The risk model is developed using meta-analysis of several pre-existing studies. • The "2 drinks or less" recommendation is shown on the chart on Page 29, which shows the lifetime risk of year-of-life-lost as an increasing function of weekly average alcohol consumption. 2 drinks is approximately the crossover point where the risk goes above baseline.
- jotjotzzz 4y agoWhat's the purpose of these warnings? Do they even save lives or just make these bureaucrats feel productive? If they really want to save lives, they need to find the cure to cancer. Do more work there.
- izzydata 4y agoThat logic isn't sound. Why put warning labels on anything? We could find a way to replace damaged lungs with artificial ones instead of not smoking. It is like treating the symptoms when we could instead just not poison ourselves. We should of course do both, but curing cancer is about as difficult as any medical science task can be. In the meantime we could try letting people know that something might cause unwanted health effects.
- ja3k 4y agoI think the Canadian report it references is here: https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2023-01/LRDG%20Lifetime%20risk%20of%20alcohol%20attributable%20death%20and%20disability.pdf https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2023-01/LRDG%20Lifet... I might be being dumb but does anyone understand the graphs on page 18? There are multiple lines for different consumption levels but the x axis is also consumption level? I also don't understand why everything is piece-wise linear. It makes me think they don't actually have very high quality data? Maybe people just self selecting buckets?
- rcme 4y agoOne thing that would be helpful in making this type of decision is to know the impact on average life expectancy. For instance, cigarettes shorten one's life by an average of 13 years. Most would agree that 13 years is an absolutely massive number. According to this one source, the average lifespan of a drinker consuming 10-15 drinks a week is shortened by 1-2 years: https://www.nationaltasc.org/years-drinking-take-away-from-life/ https://www.nationaltasc.org/years-drinking-take-away-from-l... Warnings are important, but giving people clear data on the consequences of their decisions are is important too.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoBeing obese seems to have an effect of between 3-14 years depending on the study. I think emphasis should be proportionate, so maybe less emphasis on alcohol and more emphasis on the negative effects of being overweight. But still some emphasis on alcohol... proportionate.
- tptacek 4y agoThe study that page relies on is about all-cause mortality (in particular, CVD); the article is about cancer warnings.
- LatteLazy 4y agoI don't really care if they put these warnings on. But that presents a problem: If a low-level drinker who is reasonably interested in his health doesn't care about the warnings, will anyone? And if no one cares, why bother? Was there a significant drop in smoking when they added warnings?
- barbazoo 4y agoIf I was a smoker and had to look at those pictures on the pack I think I'd think about that from time to time. Not sure if that alone would cause me to quit but perhaps it would be one aspect.
- izzydata 4y agoThen there is really no reason not to put these warnings. People can make their own decisions if it matters to them or not. It would be worth it even if the results were not significant. Any amount of people becoming more informed in their decision making is worth it.
- Nomentatus 4y agoAll organic solvents are a cancer risk for the same reason: they imitate water (an inorganic solvent) inside our cells, but they're not water. Therefore, every single chemical reaction inside the cell is a bit different. Whether inhibited or triggered, or slowed, or sped up. So more reactions are likely to go wrong; perhaps creating free radicals that can rip up any molecule they touch, including DNA. We are immensely better than other mammals at coping with alcohol (which yeast uses to poison other organisms and so preserve its food sources such as fruit.) Our livers prioritize neutralizing and excreting alcohol; letting other chemicals pile up meanwhile. Hence, just about any medication becomes more toxic if you drink alcohol at the same time. We like the brain effects, but in truth every chemical reaction in the body is affected. Speculating, however: some of the cancer risk from modern alcohol sources, however, may come from very long storage. Wine put down for more than the three years nec to sediment out lousy-tasting tannins continues to form Frankenstein flavor molecules (flavinoids) that have unusual tastes because they're random, they don't occur in nature. While flavinoids promote health, the Frankenstein versions of them likely don't and may be a potent extra source of cancer risk, even though we highly value those rare, weird flavors. Evolution hasn't necessarily shaped us to cope with these novel molecules, since we wouldn't have encountered them. Of course, wine retains many of the very significant health-enhancing virtues of grape juice so it may often not do net harm (esp if the wine hasn't been put down for too long) but you can also buy grape juice.
- WalterBright 4y agoHuman body tolerance to alcohol probably comes from thousands of years of experience with it.
- Nomentatus 4y agoIt's a very recent trait evolutionarily but seems to predate deliberate alcohol production for the most part. It's been thought that when the human population became very small during an ice age, the ability to eat old fruit under snow might have been very important. But you're right, populations used to deliberate fermentation for thousands of years, such as in China seem to be much better protected.
- rbrown 4y agoIs there a study showing countries with differences in life expectancies between countries with low or high alcohol consumption? Given that we've had prohibition in the US before and that couldn't have gone worst, I feel like the society-level considerations are very relevant here.
- nitwit005 4y agoIf "no amount of alcohol is safe", we should put cancer warnings on bread and fruit: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421578/
- collyw 4y agoIndeed I take an interest in health and nutrition, but it honestly gets a bit silly following some people to the letter The Huberman podcast for example, really interesting, but how many supplements do you actually need and how big a benefit do they give you? You can usually find contradictory studies on almost anything. Refined sugar and processed crap seem to be the one thing that everyone agrees are bad. And exercise and proper sleep are good. I live a balanced lifestyle. A reasonable amount of alcohol or cannabis but I eat well and do plenty of exercise. I seem in better shape than most people with less alcohol and less exercise.
- vidanay 4y agoWarning: Participating in life causes death.
- exabrial 4y agoOh yeah, because "contains chemicals known the state of california" really helps us all out. Come on, aren't there real problems to solve? Do we have grid scale battery storage yet? Are we building more GenIV nuclear reactors? Do we have environmentally friendly desalinization? Let's not waste our breath on dumb crap like this. This is a distraction.
- mrguyorama 4y agoAh yes, because the people in charge of alcohol labeling are definitely the ones who can cut red tape in the area of funding battery development.
- cheapliquor 4y agoGo ahead, put the labels on. Still won't stop me.
- theironhammer 4y ago[dead]
- throwaway22032 4y agoLabelling alcohol with a message that states that acetaldehyde is carcinogenic I have no issue with. However, if this is going to be anything like smoking, the labels won't be there for the sake of informing, they'll be there as an emotional appeal. They'll start out as "surgeon general recommends", then they'll become high contrast, then they'll start putting gross pictures on it, then all beer bottles will be one colour and hidden away behind a counter. If pubs end up having to have pint glasses with a picture of an inflated liver or something equally disgusting it would frankly not be informational but abusive. It'd be an attempt to shame people into submission. I fully expect to see this within my lifetime and it honestly just sickens me. Fuck off, man, just give me the information and let me decide.
- k3fernan 4y agoPersonal/un-scientific opinion. It's worth trying going on/off alcohol to see the effects on your sleep, mental health, behavior, and honestly finances. I'm trying no alcohol Jan (like a lot of people) and I've been noticing the effects on my sleep, mental health and the $$$ saved. Similar to skipping coffee, a week or so every year. It's good to just introspect and question your defaults. You'll learn something about yourself. Similar to eating meat, maybe we are better off just eating less of it. Just my two cents.