10 ms·

I think your argument is a bit shaky if you take into consideration alcohol in society. alcohol consumption is perfectly acceptable, very well-regulated, “safe

by ak_111 3y ago

I think your argument is a bit shaky if you take into consideration alcohol in society. alcohol consumption is perfectly acceptable, very well-regulated, “safe”, and alcoholics receive plenty of support and sympathy from public health, yet that doesn’t stop alcoholism ripping through society with countless victims (and victims of victims). You can even make the argument that many alocholics wouldn’t be so if alcohol was less normalised in society

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
On the other hand, you can look at the vast majority of society that drinks in perfectly reasonable moderation. Teetotalers make up a tiny fraction of society, yet civilization hasn't crumbled to barbarism. If a community is experiencing alcoholism at such a rate that it's "ripping through society", then that suggests to me that there's a greater root evil than the bottle.
- schrodinger 3y ago
  Actually, you'd be surprised to learn that 20–40% of Americans don't drink. There are all different ways to define it leading to the ambiguous statistics (e.g. once a year, never, include/exclude under 21 year olds), but either way I found it very surprising how many people don't actually drink alcohol.
WastingMyTime89 3y ago
> “safe” No idea of why you quote the word. Alcohol consumption is demonstrably unsafe. The estimate is that alcohol kills around 140 000 people per year in the USA. It's just legal because criminalisation was tried and proven to be not only useless but actually more harmful to society through its side effects, a situation similar to the one we are still having with all the other drugs which are still illegal basically.
throwanem 3y ago
The argument has been made before. It didn't turn out all that well, not least because methanol is neurotoxic.
- nuxi 3y ago
  I think you meant "ethanol", methanol is fatal to drink even in small doses.
  - bittercynic 3y ago
    I think GP was referring to the increase in methanol poisoning during prohibition.
  - steppi 3y ago
    Not that ethanol isn't also neurotoxic (to a much lesser degree), but bootleg moonshines common during prohibition often contained trace amounts of methanol, the number of people irreversibly injured by methanol poisoning greatly exceeded the number who died. By 1926, according to Prohibition, by Edward Behr, 750 New Yorkers perished from such poisoning and hundreds of thousands more suffered irreversible injuries including blindness and paralysis. [0] [0] https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1864521_1864524_1864626,00.html https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Didn't the government also add methanol to non-consumption alcohol products as well, contributing to those poisoning numbers?
      - steppi 3y ago
        Yeah, industrial alcohols were (and still are) "denatured" with additives to make them toxic or unpalatable and industrial alcohol was often used as a precursor for bootleg spirits during prohibition. I think modern denaturants lean more towards unpalatable than toxic.
      - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        This was likely the cause of the vast majority of methanol poisonings during the prohibition. You have to use exotic, hard to break down carbohydrates in your beer, wine, or mash (the pre-distillation fermented product), like tree bark, to end up with significant quantities of methanol. Most of the methanol poisonings were from poorly "re"natured fuel alcohol.
smoldesu 3y ago
> You can even make the argument that many alocholics wouldn’t be so if alcohol was less normalised in society Didn't American and European prohibition vehemently disprove this theory?
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  Prohibition actually worked relatively well.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    It reduced harm until it started to increase harm. At the end of the day human vice isn't going away.
  - skulk 3y ago
    It's not useful to judge prohibition in a single dimension of "work well" to "didn't work". Sure, cirrhosis rates went down significantly but organized crime (a disease of its own) was gifted a torrent of money to fuel other activities.
- joncrane 3y ago
  It was a "loud minority" type of thing. The average person simply stopped drinking, which was fine. In today's market, 10% of the drinkers consume 90% of the alcohol. So the efforts of the 10% and the people serving the 10%, and the efforts of law enforcement to stop them, resulted in many very high profile, violent events, which made it seem like it wasn't worth the effort. Full disclosure, I'm an alcoholic in recovery and I'd be fine with alcohol being illegal. My main beef is that the laws are not internally consistent: THC is by far a milder drug than alcohol but alcohol is legal while THC is still mostly illegal in the US (federally). Either legalize THC completely or ban alcohol if you want to be consistent. Also worth noting, THC (at less than 0.3% which is plenty for gummies) and many very very close, but naturally occurring (in infinitesimal amounts) are technically legal federally and companies like 3CHI are exploiting those loopholes. You can buy a vape containing things like HHC, THC-P, THC-O, etc which is virtually indistinguishable from Delta-9 THC, so obviously the days of THC being illegal are numbered.

by ak_111 3y ago

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

On the other hand, you can look at the vast majority of society that drinks in perfectly reasonable moderation. Teetotalers make up a tiny fraction of society, yet civilization hasn't crumbled to barbarism. If a community is experiencing alcoholism at such a rate that it's "ripping through society", then that suggests to me that there's a greater root evil than the bottle.

schrodinger 3y ago
Actually, you'd be surprised to learn that 20–40% of Americans don't drink. There are all different ways to define it leading to the ambiguous statistics (e.g. once a year, never, include/exclude under 21 year olds), but either way I found it very surprising how many people don't actually drink alcohol.

WastingMyTime89 3y ago

> “safe” No idea of why you quote the word. Alcohol consumption is demonstrably unsafe. The estimate is that alcohol kills around 140 000 people per year in the USA. It's just legal because criminalisation was tried and proven to be not only useless but actually more harmful to society through its side effects, a situation similar to the one we are still having with all the other drugs which are still illegal basically.

throwanem 3y ago

The argument has been made before. It didn't turn out all that well, not least because methanol is neurotoxic.

nuxi 3y ago
I think you meant "ethanol", methanol is fatal to drink even in small doses.
- bittercynic 3y ago
  I think GP was referring to the increase in methanol poisoning during prohibition.
- steppi 3y ago
  Not that ethanol isn't also neurotoxic (to a much lesser degree), but bootleg moonshines common during prohibition often contained trace amounts of methanol, the number of people irreversibly injured by methanol poisoning greatly exceeded the number who died. By 1926, according to Prohibition, by Edward Behr, 750 New Yorkers perished from such poisoning and hundreds of thousands more suffered irreversible injuries including blindness and paralysis. [0] [0] https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1864521_1864524_1864626,00.html https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28...
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Didn't the government also add methanol to non-consumption alcohol products as well, contributing to those poisoning numbers?
    - steppi 3y ago
      Yeah, industrial alcohols were (and still are) "denatured" with additives to make them toxic or unpalatable and industrial alcohol was often used as a precursor for bootleg spirits during prohibition. I think modern denaturants lean more towards unpalatable than toxic.
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      This was likely the cause of the vast majority of methanol poisonings during the prohibition. You have to use exotic, hard to break down carbohydrates in your beer, wine, or mash (the pre-distillation fermented product), like tree bark, to end up with significant quantities of methanol. Most of the methanol poisonings were from poorly "re"natured fuel alcohol.

smoldesu 3y ago

> You can even make the argument that many alocholics wouldn’t be so if alcohol was less normalised in society Didn't American and European prohibition vehemently disprove this theory?

runsWphotons 3y ago
Prohibition actually worked relatively well.
- pixl97 3y ago
  It reduced harm until it started to increase harm. At the end of the day human vice isn't going away.
- skulk 3y ago
  It's not useful to judge prohibition in a single dimension of "work well" to "didn't work". Sure, cirrhosis rates went down significantly but organized crime (a disease of its own) was gifted a torrent of money to fuel other activities.
joncrane 3y ago
It was a "loud minority" type of thing. The average person simply stopped drinking, which was fine. In today's market, 10% of the drinkers consume 90% of the alcohol. So the efforts of the 10% and the people serving the 10%, and the efforts of law enforcement to stop them, resulted in many very high profile, violent events, which made it seem like it wasn't worth the effort. Full disclosure, I'm an alcoholic in recovery and I'd be fine with alcohol being illegal. My main beef is that the laws are not internally consistent: THC is by far a milder drug than alcohol but alcohol is legal while THC is still mostly illegal in the US (federally). Either legalize THC completely or ban alcohol if you want to be consistent. Also worth noting, THC (at less than 0.3% which is plenty for gummies) and many very very close, but naturally occurring (in infinitesimal amounts) are technically legal federally and companies like 3CHI are exploiting those loopholes. You can buy a vape containing things like HHC, THC-P, THC-O, etc which is virtually indistinguishable from Delta-9 THC, so obviously the days of THC being illegal are numbered.