Almost. It’s that first breakdown step of ethanol into acetaldehyde that is the worst, but the human body is remarkably resilient to it.
Humans have a very interesting relationship to alcohol, for sure. It was very useful for preserving primitive beer for long periods which helped us survive and evolve. Hell, it is even theorized that we started to develop the ability to process the stuff so we wouldn’t get blasted out of our minds when we left the trees to forage for fruits that may have already been fermented.
But, yes, it could be considered a toxin that has no purpose these days. Truth be told, it is still useful for it’s medicinal effects when combined with other medications for cold and flu relief. In highly stressful situations it can be beneficial for a quick morale boost. There are plenty of other uses for it as well.
In full disclosure, I don’t drink anymore. My body has always metabolized it too well and led me to drink a lot, quickly. Hangovers were always short if I even had a serious one at all. This excessive drinking led to an addiction which took me years to overcome. But enough about me…
My point is not to underestimate its benefits, s’all. Moderation is key and for those who cannot moderate, abstain.
The alcohol content in primitive beer was far too low to act as a preservative. The only reason it was useful back then is because it didn’t cause dysentery - which was purely because it was boiled and had nothing to do with the alcohol
medicinal effects when combined with other medications for cold and flu relief.
Good correction, thanks. I must have been thinking of hops that was added later to preserve the beer. Boiling is a much simpler answer.
Alcohol is an immunosuppressant, yes. To clarify my point, It’s proper function is as a solvent in, say, cough syrup, to ensure correct mixture. It can change the rate at which medicines are broken down by the body to some degree while also acting as an extremely mild sedative as well.
Warnings now do appear on the back of alcohol in the EU but they’re usually small things on the back of the label stating the units of alcohol in the bottle & warning about drinking while pregnant or whatever.
Problem with these is they state some tiny amount equivalent to like half a glass of wine as the most you should have in a day, even though in the real world… basically anyone who drinks has a at least a little bit more than that and the moderate majority are fine and not on death’s door. I know 70 and 80 year olds in the pub who must drink 10+ units a day (I actually notice the oldies are the worst for wanting like 6%+ ABV beers) and are still there doing fine. So it has a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” effect to slap warnings on about drinking more than 14 units a week / 2 a day / whatever when at least in the UK like “everyone” drinks more than that. It just becomes a lauging stock, “look at that silly over-cautious nanny label”. If there should be any warning, IMO it’d be not to binge. If you can’t remember what happened the next morning, you drank too much, and it’s if you do that too often that it’s a major health risk.
Drinking more than these labelled amounts isn’t good for you, but health warnings should be more closely aligned to “really bad for you” to be taken seriously imo.
Well, because even those tiny amounts have a negative effect on your body. Instead of laughing about it, maybe you should consider, that you and everyone around you consumes too much alcohol? It’s exactly the 1 beer a day, that leads to addiction (and, possibly, cancer).
He’s talking about how the standard unit of alcohol definition bears no resemblance to anything people actually interact with in the real world. For example, one unit of alcohol is ~200mL of a typical beer. When was the last time you saw beer sold in 200mL containers?
He is saying that if you want to communicate such ideas to people you need to speak to them at their level, not something geared towards scientists. If you ask random people on the street how much beer one drink is, they will likely tell you it is one pint (473mL), when in reality that is more than two drinks.
And when one finds out that, they are not going to reel in horror, they are going to laugh at how out of touch someone was to communicate that idea so poorly.
People will still laugh, even if scientists say, that half a beer (250ml) is already bad for you. Scientists need to present facts, if people head their conclusions or not, is not really their problem in most cases. Our society is deeply ingrained with alcohol abuse. How do you think scientists or science journalism should present the fact, that even small amounts of alcohol are detrimental to your health, to the general public?
How do you think scientists or science journalism should present the fact, that even small amounts of alcohol are detrimental to your health, to the general public?
Before we get too deep, is the intent to present the facts, or to guide behaviour? I always took it was the latter, but you could be right that it is the former. In which case, whatever we’re doing is fine. The facts are out there. If people want to laugh at the facts, so be it.
Facts don’t guide behaviour, though. Human behaviour is guided by emulation of those envied in society. More simply, whatever a rich person does, the general public will soon try to copy them. And, indeed, alcohol has shown be to central to fortunes. That data shows a higher rate of alcohol use amongst those who are considered rich. In fact, some studies suggest that fortunes are built on the social connections greased by the lowering of inhibitions caused by alcohol.
If the intent is to guide behaviour, scientists can develop something to see fortunes more likely to end up in the hands of the teetotallers. If sipping water in their mother’s basement and not getting completely blasted at the Kentucky Derby was what rich people did, attitudes would change pretty quickly.
Of course, the data also shows a higher rate of alcohol use amongst those who succeed in academia ([1] i.e. the scientists themselves) ([2] something also correlated with being wealthier), so it may not be something they have an interest in.
More specifically (btw pint = 568ml) when I said about laughing at it I meant more at how it’s so little you might as well not drink at all. Which I get is their point as this poster obviously loathes alcohol and thinks it’s the most dangerous thing in the world, but yet we’re not all dropping left and right as you’d expect. If it was that dangerous the UK population would’ve been wiped out by now.
No one, literally no one, goes out and has half a pint then says “well the label says that’s too much so I’m off home”. That’s where, right or wrong, the suggestion is kind of laughable.
It’s an ideal, perhaps. But it’s such a tight ideal that no one will even try to follow it. Maybe if they aimed for “better” rather than “almost perfect” (with perfection being teetotality) they’d have more success. A label more like “if you can’t remember what happened when you wake up tomorrow, you’re severely harming your health” would at least get some of those in the biggest danger to rein it in a bit.
Not really equivalent. Smoking permanently leaves all kind of nasty shit in your lungs and causes cancer. Also very addictive, making moderation physically difficult (alcohol can also be addictive but not to the same extremes). Alcohol in moderation isn’t really an issue. Pushing it more can give your liver a bad time, but as long as you give it a break before the point of disease it can bounce right back.
There is a societal problem especially in the UK in that it’s seen as a sort of matter of pride to throw moderation out of the window and get as wasted as possible, but I have my doubts that graphic health warnings will do much about that. Either way it’s more an effect of society ignoring and sometimes even shaming moderation (how many times have you been shamed for going home before you fall over on a work’s night out) than the alcohol itself.
Smoking does not permanently leave anything in your lungs. The lungs constantly self clean and I believe after 10 years, all damage from any amount of smoking is removed.
Still, rather not have all that sitting there for 10 years. The liver recovers from a few pints a lot quicker I believe, and even in the less favourable case of a fatty liver, a matter of weeks of abstienence rather than years. Disease of either, is probably a more dangerous situation.
Still, as even they say, the less the safer. I’d say go after the low hanging fruit of binge drinkers (of which there are many).long before going after those of us who drink moderately.
Yeah good input though. I’m surprised WHO sees it as worse than smoking. Not something I think I could ever find myself agreeing with, but honestly it seems every form of evidence/study these days has another one saying different so I don’t much believe in objective truth any more. Just going to enjoy life, as long as it lasts. Smoke literally feels nasty to me in a way that drinking (within reason) doesn’t.
Canada is within America. America is exceedingly broad, with so many different jurisdictions, all with their own rules. There is no single answer as to what the rules are across all of America. Since this is a Canadian forum, Canada was a reasonable choice to narrow down to.
There is still room for you to dive into some of those other jurisdictions, if you find it pertinent, but I expect nobody here actually cares about what is going on in, say, Mexico.
The concept of ‘America’ these days does not apply to continental plates
The thing is, we keep a record of how words are commonly used, and that record tells that it absolutely does refer to a set of continents. But, I know, let’s not let facts and figures get in the way of random internet nonsense.
You know what I meant
Yes, I know you meant it in jest. Nobody would actually take time out of their day to write such a comment earnestly. We can all see that.
It also refers to the combined area of North and South America. This the more likely usage here, as who would ask about whether or not the USA has such regulation in a Canadian forum? That would have no relevance.
User is I would assume German, asking on a Canadian instance, and on post about a Canadian news. I’d say that’s pretty reasonable. Canadian is part of America, as well as the USA.
The world would look so SO much better with advertising gone.
Now we have to deal with 5x50 meters (sigh, 15 by 150 foot) video screens that illuminate the night sky and blind you while you are driving, but hey, BUY NIKE!
This is not even mentioning brands buying up buildings and clubs and hospitals and what-not so that they can plaster their name over it. It sucks.
Brand recognition has been a bane of our existence for the past century
I might be up for a very VERY strictly limited form of advertising, limited to only a few spaces and times, but I’d love it that brands only show up when I ask them to. I need to buy a car? If I search “I want to buy a car” or something like that, then you can show me brands. Hell, even there, screw the shitty commercials, just show me the brand names and that’s it.
Where I live, they’ve got some sort of weird “The Future Is Electric” campaign going on. It’s on the busses, there’s a billboard of one near my place, and hell, that one’s powered so it shines brighter than the street lights at night!
And what is it advertising? I have no idea. Just that our province paid for it. The province. For at least one powered, custom billboard along with who knows how many regular ads. For something that I can’t even start figuring out.
Ads aren’t just ugly and a cheap way to make people spend money on things that they don’t need or even make their lives worse, but our tax dollars are spend on meaningless ads when there’s so many social and economic issues that are being actively ignored or even caused by the current governments.
Because alchol sellers aren’t widely considered as flat out evil as cigarette makers, meaning that they can still realistically grease the wheels of power with dump trucks full of money.
I’m sure cigarette makers would love to the do the same thing, but no politician is dumb enough to risk taking “campaign contributions” from people who are widely considered to be the scum of the earth. Alcohol makers still have a level of respectability that lets them get away with it.
I can think of local brewers and stuff that do it as a hobby, and just happened to take a chance to start doing it professionally. I don’t think these people are evil at all, they’re just trying to have fun with their interest (albeit one that isn’t great for your health) and make some money while doing so.
Can’t really say the same thing for tobacco. I’m sure in some places there may be a similar kind thing though, so that’s just a thought from my local perspective. All I know are big corporate brands for smoking.
Edit: just to add onto this… I absolutely think we should include ingredients, nutritional facts, and warnings on alcohol still. Just my 2 cents about one being more evil than the other by a landslide.
Very true. I was just comparing corporations to corporations. Craft breweries are certainly not evil; they’re the equivalent of local businesses for the most part.
They did, if you look at late 20th century history. The lobbying and propaganda they did at the time was insane, but there was only so much they could do when people were dying from lung cancer, had trouble breathing, and even chewing tobacco was known to cause mouth cancer.
They simply gave up trying so hard in the west and concentrated efforts in emerging markets. Do you remember the infamous video of the smoking baby a few years ago? Shit like that’s eerily common in places like Indonesia.
In fairness, cigarettes contain known carcinogens. You are ripping apart your DNA with every dart. Can the same be said for having a few drinks a week?
I say this as someone who’s never taken a single drag or had even a drop of alcohol (cooking notwithstanding).
People should be informed of that too. I’d bet more people eat meat thinking it’s healthy then eat french fries thinking it’s healthy. Let people make informed choices for themselves. You can’t do that if you don’t have the information.
That would require actual science and research instead of regurgitating the same debunked data study 20 times a year for government propaganda dollars though…
I would argue the overwhelming majority of consumers do not know alcohol is a proven carcinogen, and many would still choose to make more health conscious choices, even though the relative risk is lower than smoking.
While alcohol is a carcinogen, it only accounts for something like 3% of cancers deaths, mostly paired with liver disease. Hell, breathing air in a city causes more cancer deaths than alcohol.
This whole article reads like a modern temperance movement, trying to stamp out vice by comparing one harm to another, despite how different the harms are.
We know the harms of alcohol, they are different than the harms of tobacco. They should not be regulated the same. This article misses that completely.
Being a carcinogen is alcohols minor side effect. Don’t forget alcohol poisoning and the damage it does to families and relationships due to alcoholism, and another biggie, driving under the influence.
We know the harms of alcohol, they are different than the harms of tobacco. They should not be regulated the same. This article misses that completely.
I just didn’t list out the harms of alcohol, or how they’re regulated, because I thought everyone knew.
The list of proven and likely carcinogens is rather large. Do we put a similar health warning on every sausage and strip of bacon? Plus planks of wood (wood dust contains known carcinogen). If you extend the list to mutagens, rather than proven carciogens the list gets even longer
I wholly agree with the author of this article, but implementing something like this will meet a lot of resistance.
Let’s not forget that cigarettes are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas alcohol is something we’ve consumed as a species since prehistoric times. There are a lot of cultural, social, and historical ties to the use of alcohol that people won’t let go easily and will make any attempt to reduce alcohol consumption an uphill battle.
And coffee, and butter, and sugar, and artificial sweeteners, and cannabis, and cars.,. prohibition is stupid. Mind your own fucking business. Stop trying to control others.
Sure I’ll establish it with in context. Just because “other things are also dangerous” doesn’t mean warning should not be on the label of a known carcinogen. This is coming from someone who drinks more than he should.
Putting a warning on the label of a product known to cause harm isn’t “controlling others”. You are free to still consume the product. It is allowing you to make an informed choice, even if you are unaware or unable to access that information from other sources.
I am in the US, and we have warnings but no nutritional facts on alcohol. In practice, I don’t like wasting government time creating restrictions on labeling just so they can be ignored, because the real reason for it is to baby step at making it a bespoken cultural norm that it is bad, therefore it should be banned and people who partake are bad by association.
I think nutrition facts should be on everything, and if there is NO “hey kiddies, this is alcohol” on the can, okay, there can be one. Before I checked the context myself, I thought this was a “put pictures of tumors on cigarette packs, the simple warning isn’t good enough!” kind of conversation.
Discounting my comment in the conversation of specifically putting warnings on alcohol as “slippery slope fallacy” takes all the other stuff I just mentioned out of the equation. Just like a simple “Alcohol can cause X” on the can, putting a simple “Butter causes high cholesterol and heart failure” is also a good idea. putting a simple “Caffeine causes addiction and vascular issues” is also a good idea. Putting a “Fossil Fuel Emissions cause cancer and global warming” on the gas pump/gas cap cover on your car is a good idea.
I guess my point is that putting “Warning: Hot” on coffee cups is a waste of both government and private business resources. It does have some minimal merit though, but where do you start? I would be starting with Fossil Fuels. Those seem the most pressing and devastating of hazards we need to be addressing. If you are fixated on smokes and alcohol first, I think you have lost the plot.
It IS possible to establish basic simple warnings on everything that should have them though. Not doing that, to me, reeks of pushing for prohibition.
I agree with you that prohibition isn’t the way to do things. In my opinion the war on drugs is a waste of tax payers money and more importantly human life stuck behind bars. If you are speaking against criminalization of substances I’m with you. I’m however, not against harm reduction and education, including warning labels on products that are harmful.
Sounds like we are really close to meeting in the middle, I’m just a little more cautious about one part than you are and you are a little more cautious than me on a different part.
Argument from fallacy. Just because an argument contains a fallacy doen not mean that its conclusion is false. In this context I feel like it would be much more effective to point out that cigarettes are totally unnecessary, while owning a car (depending on where you live) is not. Putting a warning label on something like cigarettes is not comparable to putting warning signs on something that you actively need to survive.
“[cars] (depending on where you live) something you actively need to survive.” Seems like you conveniently forgot something there. If you live in a place where you can walk to work and the grocery store that’s amazing for you! For many people having a vehicle is not a choice, but a necessity.
Busses, trains, scooters, electric vehicles of any kind.
I’m not saying electric means no fossil fuel emissions of any kind. Almost everywhere is feeling varying growing pains exploring how to responsibly keep an ever more drawn upon electric grid charged.
I’m saying gas fueled cars need to go away, not yesterday, but at least 15 years ago.
Artificial sweeteners are very safe and sugar is carbohydrates, which you almost need for energy and a healthy diet. Coffee and butter is also quite safe.
But alcohol and tobacco? Any amount is harmful. Warnings wouldn’t be unreasonable for people to make more informed decisions. You’d be surprised at how many think alcohol is harmless. And its stuff you quite literally don’t need to live.
You clearly don’t follow the news and aren’t very educated on the topic of carcinogens.
Artificial Sweeteners are being found to be carcinogenic. Sugar causes obesity and diabetes. Coffee is addictive and causes vascular disorders. Butter causes high cholesterol and heart attacks.
Tobacco and alcohol have no notable adverse impacts for at least 20 to 40 years (unless you drink to the point of alcohol poisoning, that is immediate).
You clearly aren’t interested in knowledge or having a productive conversation. You just want to do the propagandist prohibitionist circlejerk.
Slippery slope fallacy. Also a lot of people actually don’t know that alcohol causes cancer and heart disease as well as homicide, etc. A lot of gullible people drink it because they are socially led to believe that it’s OK or perhaps even necessary, but these are not thinking or informed people. The fact that you call legitimate health information about alcohol “propaganda” shows that you’re not really in the “know” camp, doesn’t it?
No one recreationally smokes the same way that people might drink every once in a while.
You also have a lot of money spent by various alcohol manufacturers to keep alcohol from being treated like tobacco. If anything, drinking went up a lot with millennials.
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Alcohol is a literal fucking toxin
Almost. It’s that first breakdown step of ethanol into acetaldehyde that is the worst, but the human body is remarkably resilient to it.
Humans have a very interesting relationship to alcohol, for sure. It was very useful for preserving primitive beer for long periods which helped us survive and evolve. Hell, it is even theorized that we started to develop the ability to process the stuff so we wouldn’t get blasted out of our minds when we left the trees to forage for fruits that may have already been fermented.
But, yes, it could be considered a toxin that has no purpose these days. Truth be told, it is still useful for it’s medicinal effects when combined with other medications for cold and flu relief. In highly stressful situations it can be beneficial for a quick morale boost. There are plenty of other uses for it as well.
In full disclosure, I don’t drink anymore. My body has always metabolized it too well and led me to drink a lot, quickly. Hangovers were always short if I even had a serious one at all. This excessive drinking led to an addiction which took me years to overcome. But enough about me…
My point is not to underestimate its benefits, s’all. Moderation is key and for those who cannot moderate, abstain.
The alcohol content in primitive beer was far too low to act as a preservative. The only reason it was useful back then is because it didn’t cause dysentery - which was purely because it was boiled and had nothing to do with the alcohol
Alcohol is an immunosuppressant
Good correction, thanks. I must have been thinking of hops that was added later to preserve the beer. Boiling is a much simpler answer.
Alcohol is an immunosuppressant, yes. To clarify my point, It’s proper function is as a solvent in, say, cough syrup, to ensure correct mixture. It can change the rate at which medicines are broken down by the body to some degree while also acting as an extremely mild sedative as well.
Wow, very interesting and informative!
Also want to say congrats on the sobriety. I know all to well of what that kind of withdrawal is like (2 years bzd clean as of yesterday!)
Because the alcohol industry is still profitable enough for special treatment.
Warnings now do appear on the back of alcohol in the EU but they’re usually small things on the back of the label stating the units of alcohol in the bottle & warning about drinking while pregnant or whatever.
Problem with these is they state some tiny amount equivalent to like half a glass of wine as the most you should have in a day, even though in the real world… basically anyone who drinks has a at least a little bit more than that and the moderate majority are fine and not on death’s door. I know 70 and 80 year olds in the pub who must drink 10+ units a day (I actually notice the oldies are the worst for wanting like 6%+ ABV beers) and are still there doing fine. So it has a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” effect to slap warnings on about drinking more than 14 units a week / 2 a day / whatever when at least in the UK like “everyone” drinks more than that. It just becomes a lauging stock, “look at that silly over-cautious nanny label”. If there should be any warning, IMO it’d be not to binge. If you can’t remember what happened the next morning, you drank too much, and it’s if you do that too often that it’s a major health risk.
Drinking more than these labelled amounts isn’t good for you, but health warnings should be more closely aligned to “really bad for you” to be taken seriously imo.
Well, because even those tiny amounts have a negative effect on your body. Instead of laughing about it, maybe you should consider, that you and everyone around you consumes too much alcohol? It’s exactly the 1 beer a day, that leads to addiction (and, possibly, cancer).
He’s talking about how the standard unit of alcohol definition bears no resemblance to anything people actually interact with in the real world. For example, one unit of alcohol is ~200mL of a typical beer. When was the last time you saw beer sold in 200mL containers?
He is saying that if you want to communicate such ideas to people you need to speak to them at their level, not something geared towards scientists. If you ask random people on the street how much beer one drink is, they will likely tell you it is one pint (473mL), when in reality that is more than two drinks.
And when one finds out that, they are not going to reel in horror, they are going to laugh at how out of touch someone was to communicate that idea so poorly.
People will still laugh, even if scientists say, that half a beer (250ml) is already bad for you. Scientists need to present facts, if people head their conclusions or not, is not really their problem in most cases. Our society is deeply ingrained with alcohol abuse. How do you think scientists or science journalism should present the fact, that even small amounts of alcohol are detrimental to your health, to the general public?
Before we get too deep, is the intent to present the facts, or to guide behaviour? I always took it was the latter, but you could be right that it is the former. In which case, whatever we’re doing is fine. The facts are out there. If people want to laugh at the facts, so be it.
Facts don’t guide behaviour, though. Human behaviour is guided by emulation of those envied in society. More simply, whatever a rich person does, the general public will soon try to copy them. And, indeed, alcohol has shown be to central to fortunes. That data shows a higher rate of alcohol use amongst those who are considered rich. In fact, some studies suggest that fortunes are built on the social connections greased by the lowering of inhibitions caused by alcohol.
If the intent is to guide behaviour, scientists can develop something to see fortunes more likely to end up in the hands of the teetotallers. If sipping water in their mother’s basement and not getting completely blasted at the Kentucky Derby was what rich people did, attitudes would change pretty quickly.
Of course, the data also shows a higher rate of alcohol use amongst those who succeed in academia ([1] i.e. the scientists themselves) ([2] something also correlated with being wealthier), so it may not be something they have an interest in.
More specifically (btw pint = 568ml) when I said about laughing at it I meant more at how it’s so little you might as well not drink at all. Which I get is their point as this poster obviously loathes alcohol and thinks it’s the most dangerous thing in the world, but yet we’re not all dropping left and right as you’d expect. If it was that dangerous the UK population would’ve been wiped out by now.
No one, literally no one, goes out and has half a pint then says “well the label says that’s too much so I’m off home”. That’s where, right or wrong, the suggestion is kind of laughable.
It’s an ideal, perhaps. But it’s such a tight ideal that no one will even try to follow it. Maybe if they aimed for “better” rather than “almost perfect” (with perfection being teetotality) they’d have more success. A label more like “if you can’t remember what happened when you wake up tomorrow, you’re severely harming your health” would at least get some of those in the biggest danger to rein it in a bit.
Not really equivalent. Smoking permanently leaves all kind of nasty shit in your lungs and causes cancer. Also very addictive, making moderation physically difficult (alcohol can also be addictive but not to the same extremes). Alcohol in moderation isn’t really an issue. Pushing it more can give your liver a bad time, but as long as you give it a break before the point of disease it can bounce right back.
There is a societal problem especially in the UK in that it’s seen as a sort of matter of pride to throw moderation out of the window and get as wasted as possible, but I have my doubts that graphic health warnings will do much about that. Either way it’s more an effect of society ignoring and sometimes even shaming moderation (how many times have you been shamed for going home before you fall over on a work’s night out) than the alcohol itself.
Smoking does not permanently leave anything in your lungs. The lungs constantly self clean and I believe after 10 years, all damage from any amount of smoking is removed.
The scarring from all the heavy coughing etc?
Still, rather not have all that sitting there for 10 years. The liver recovers from a few pints a lot quicker I believe, and even in the less favourable case of a fatty liver, a matter of weeks of abstienence rather than years. Disease of either, is probably a more dangerous situation.
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
In my books Strange Planet has it right with labeling it “Mild Poison”. Kind of changed the relationship for me the odd time I do drink socially.
Not exactly the most interesting of articles.
WHO? Really?
The WHO considers that light? Holy crap… so if you’re drinking 2 bottles of wine yourself per week you’re a “light drinker”
The amount I drink per week, would probably not even be called drinking in Europe.
Hmmm
Still, as even they say, the less the safer. I’d say go after the low hanging fruit of binge drinkers (of which there are many).long before going after those of us who drink moderately.
I absolutely agree, and I didn’t mean to undermine your point in any way. I just wished to inform those that might not have been aware.
Drinking less = less dangerous
I also believe that “rewards” in moderation can be more healthy than avoiding everything that is unhealthy
Yeah good input though. I’m surprised WHO sees it as worse than smoking. Not something I think I could ever find myself agreeing with, but honestly it seems every form of evidence/study these days has another one saying different so I don’t much believe in objective truth any more. Just going to enjoy life, as long as it lasts. Smoke literally feels nasty to me in a way that drinking (within reason) doesn’t.
I would like a ban on advertising, too.
I think alcohol advertising will eventually be banned but it’ll take a long time. Governments are addicted to the revenues.
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https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/publicit/codesalco.htm
No advertising to children is the most important restriction and several guidelines address this issue
Poster asked america, you provided canadian stats. Just fyi’s
Canada is within America. America is exceedingly broad, with so many different jurisdictions, all with their own rules. There is no single answer as to what the rules are across all of America. Since this is a Canadian forum, Canada was a reasonable choice to narrow down to.
There is still room for you to dive into some of those other jurisdictions, if you find it pertinent, but I expect nobody here actually cares about what is going on in, say, Mexico.
Canada is within the continent of North America.
The concept of ‘America’ these days does not apply to continental plates, and you know that as well as i do.
You know what I meant, and you are arguing disingenuously. We can all see it.
And North America is located within America.
The thing is, we keep a record of how words are commonly used, and that record tells that it absolutely does refer to a set of continents. But, I know, let’s not let facts and figures get in the way of random internet nonsense.
Yes, I know you meant it in jest. Nobody would actually take time out of their day to write such a comment earnestly. We can all see that.
🙄
You are right. I misread America as “North America”, but America means USA. In the USA, they have freedom of speech, more so than Canada, the government can’t restrict advertising that much. Their industry is mostly self-regulating, for example: https://www.beerinstitute.org/policy-responsibility/responsibility/advertising-marketing-code/
When the cigarette companies decided they were losing money by advertising on TV they got it banned.
It also refers to the combined area of North and South America. This the more likely usage here, as who would ask about whether or not the USA has such regulation in a Canadian forum? That would have no relevance.
North, South, and Central America! 😉
You must be right since I originally included Canada in “America”.
User is I would assume German, asking on a Canadian instance, and on post about a Canadian news. I’d say that’s pretty reasonable. Canadian is part of America, as well as the USA.
I’d like a ban on all forms of advertising.
Marketing is nothing more than getting people to buy stuff they do not need.
It is the reason we live in a consumer culture, and is the force behind some of the biggest problems humanity faces today.
Hell yes!
The world would look so SO much better with advertising gone.
Now we have to deal with 5x50 meters (sigh, 15 by 150 foot) video screens that illuminate the night sky and blind you while you are driving, but hey, BUY NIKE!
This is not even mentioning brands buying up buildings and clubs and hospitals and what-not so that they can plaster their name over it. It sucks.
Brand recognition has been a bane of our existence for the past century
I might be up for a very VERY strictly limited form of advertising, limited to only a few spaces and times, but I’d love it that brands only show up when I ask them to. I need to buy a car? If I search “I want to buy a car” or something like that, then you can show me brands. Hell, even there, screw the shitty commercials, just show me the brand names and that’s it.
Ha! It’s not just that!
Where I live, they’ve got some sort of weird “The Future Is Electric” campaign going on. It’s on the busses, there’s a billboard of one near my place, and hell, that one’s powered so it shines brighter than the street lights at night!
And what is it advertising? I have no idea. Just that our province paid for it. The province. For at least one powered, custom billboard along with who knows how many regular ads. For something that I can’t even start figuring out.
Ads aren’t just ugly and a cheap way to make people spend money on things that they don’t need or even make their lives worse, but our tax dollars are spend on meaningless ads when there’s so many social and economic issues that are being actively ignored or even caused by the current governments.
@NightOwl a it’s so normalized in our society that people are afraid to acknowledge the dangers.
Because alchol sellers aren’t widely considered as flat out evil as cigarette makers, meaning that they can still realistically grease the wheels of power with dump trucks full of money.
I’m sure cigarette makers would love to the do the same thing, but no politician is dumb enough to risk taking “campaign contributions” from people who are widely considered to be the scum of the earth. Alcohol makers still have a level of respectability that lets them get away with it.
Who do you think lobbied for banning flavored cigarettes and more control of vapes in the US?
I can think of local brewers and stuff that do it as a hobby, and just happened to take a chance to start doing it professionally. I don’t think these people are evil at all, they’re just trying to have fun with their interest (albeit one that isn’t great for your health) and make some money while doing so.
Can’t really say the same thing for tobacco. I’m sure in some places there may be a similar kind thing though, so that’s just a thought from my local perspective. All I know are big corporate brands for smoking.
Edit: just to add onto this… I absolutely think we should include ingredients, nutritional facts, and warnings on alcohol still. Just my 2 cents about one being more evil than the other by a landslide.
Very true. I was just comparing corporations to corporations. Craft breweries are certainly not evil; they’re the equivalent of local businesses for the most part.
IMO charging $16 a glass for another IPA with the same 3 hops that are in every IPA is pretty evil.
Economists: The high price is meant to scare you away.
Lemmy users: $16 and the same as every other IPA? Pour me another!
Bro it’s artisanal
And yet they’ll accept campaign assistance from foreign and domestic oil companies:
https://canadians.org/analysis/when-big-oil-intervenes-canadian-politics-it-does-so-foreign-money-and-huge-scale/
https://canadians.org/media/new-report-reveals-pervasive-influence-big-foreign-oil-canadian-politics/
Lobbying
I mean, aren’t the cigarette companies famous for being extreme lobbyists?
They moved to vape stuff.
They did, if you look at late 20th century history. The lobbying and propaganda they did at the time was insane, but there was only so much they could do when people were dying from lung cancer, had trouble breathing, and even chewing tobacco was known to cause mouth cancer.
They simply gave up trying so hard in the west and concentrated efforts in emerging markets. Do you remember the infamous video of the smoking baby a few years ago? Shit like that’s eerily common in places like Indonesia.
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In fairness, cigarettes contain known carcinogens. You are ripping apart your DNA with every dart. Can the same be said for having a few drinks a week?
I say this as someone who’s never taken a single drag or had even a drop of alcohol (cooking notwithstanding).
Alcohol is a carcinogen.
What isn’t a carcinogen? Cooking meat at a high temperature creates carcinogens. Oxygen and nitrogen are carcinogens. Look at everything with a Proposition 65 warning in California.
People should be informed about the carcinogens in meat too.
Plant-based foods also can create acrylamide (carcinogenic) when they are cooked at high temperatures.
People should be informed of that too. I’d bet more people eat meat thinking it’s healthy then eat french fries thinking it’s healthy. Let people make informed choices for themselves. You can’t do that if you don’t have the information.
Right. It’s a question of where the threshold is before we consider something dangerous enough to warrant a warning.
That would require actual science and research instead of regurgitating the same debunked data study 20 times a year for government propaganda dollars though…
The answer is in the article: “ I don’t want to say that there are necessarily equivalent health risks,”
I would argue the overwhelming majority of consumers do not know alcohol is a proven carcinogen, and many would still choose to make more health conscious choices, even though the relative risk is lower than smoking.
While alcohol is a carcinogen, it only accounts for something like 3% of cancers deaths, mostly paired with liver disease. Hell, breathing air in a city causes more cancer deaths than alcohol.
This whole article reads like a modern temperance movement, trying to stamp out vice by comparing one harm to another, despite how different the harms are.
We know the harms of alcohol, they are different than the harms of tobacco. They should not be regulated the same. This article misses that completely.
Being a carcinogen is alcohols minor side effect. Don’t forget alcohol poisoning and the damage it does to families and relationships due to alcoholism, and another biggie, driving under the influence.
He clearly didn’t forget, unless you think tobacco also carries the same family and relationship damage and driving under the influence problems?
Yes
I just didn’t list out the harms of alcohol, or how they’re regulated, because I thought everyone knew.
The list of proven and likely carcinogens is rather large. Do we put a similar health warning on every sausage and strip of bacon? Plus planks of wood (wood dust contains known carcinogen). If you extend the list to mutagens, rather than proven carciogens the list gets even longer
Don’t forget sugar too!
I wholly agree with the author of this article, but implementing something like this will meet a lot of resistance. Let’s not forget that cigarettes are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas alcohol is something we’ve consumed as a species since prehistoric times. There are a lot of cultural, social, and historical ties to the use of alcohol that people won’t let go easily and will make any attempt to reduce alcohol consumption an uphill battle.
And coffee, and butter, and sugar, and artificial sweeteners, and cannabis, and cars.,. prohibition is stupid. Mind your own fucking business. Stop trying to control others.
Slippery slope fallacy.
If this was meant to invalidate my argument:
Red herring fallacy
Just invoking a simple fallacy without establishing it within the context is making a red herring of fallacies themselves.
Sure I’ll establish it with in context. Just because “other things are also dangerous” doesn’t mean warning should not be on the label of a known carcinogen. This is coming from someone who drinks more than he should.
Putting a warning on the label of a product known to cause harm isn’t “controlling others”. You are free to still consume the product. It is allowing you to make an informed choice, even if you are unaware or unable to access that information from other sources.
I think nutrition facts should be on everything, and if there is NO “hey kiddies, this is alcohol” on the can, okay, there can be one. Before I checked the context myself, I thought this was a “put pictures of tumors on cigarette packs, the simple warning isn’t good enough!” kind of conversation.
I guess my point is that putting “Warning: Hot” on coffee cups is a waste of both government and private business resources. It does have some minimal merit though, but where do you start? I would be starting with Fossil Fuels. Those seem the most pressing and devastating of hazards we need to be addressing. If you are fixated on smokes and alcohol first, I think you have lost the plot.
It IS possible to establish basic simple warnings on everything that should have them though. Not doing that, to me, reeks of pushing for prohibition.
I agree with you that prohibition isn’t the way to do things. In my opinion the war on drugs is a waste of tax payers money and more importantly human life stuck behind bars. If you are speaking against criminalization of substances I’m with you. I’m however, not against harm reduction and education, including warning labels on products that are harmful.
Sounds like we are really close to meeting in the middle, I’m just a little more cautious about one part than you are and you are a little more cautious than me on a different part.
Cheers!
Hey, a civil internet conversation! I’ll take it, cheers!
Argument from fallacy. Just because an argument contains a fallacy doen not mean that its conclusion is false. In this context I feel like it would be much more effective to point out that cigarettes are totally unnecessary, while owning a car (depending on where you live) is not. Putting a warning label on something like cigarettes is not comparable to putting warning signs on something that you actively need to survive.
“[cars] something that you actively need to survive.”
You almost just made me spit out my beer.
“[cars] (depending on where you live) something you actively need to survive.” Seems like you conveniently forgot something there. If you live in a place where you can walk to work and the grocery store that’s amazing for you! For many people having a vehicle is not a choice, but a necessity.
Uber.
Let me say again, Uber.
Busses, trains, scooters, electric vehicles of any kind.
I’m not saying electric means no fossil fuel emissions of any kind. Almost everywhere is feeling varying growing pains exploring how to responsibly keep an ever more drawn upon electric grid charged.
I’m saying gas fueled cars need to go away, not yesterday, but at least 15 years ago.
Gas cars are what we as a species NEED to quit.
Simple vices pale in comparison.
Artificial sweeteners are very safe and sugar is carbohydrates, which you almost need for energy and a healthy diet. Coffee and butter is also quite safe.
But alcohol and tobacco? Any amount is harmful. Warnings wouldn’t be unreasonable for people to make more informed decisions. You’d be surprised at how many think alcohol is harmless. And its stuff you quite literally don’t need to live.
You clearly don’t follow the news and aren’t very educated on the topic of carcinogens.
Artificial Sweeteners are being found to be carcinogenic. Sugar causes obesity and diabetes. Coffee is addictive and causes vascular disorders. Butter causes high cholesterol and heart attacks.
Tobacco and alcohol have no notable adverse impacts for at least 20 to 40 years (unless you drink to the point of alcohol poisoning, that is immediate).
You clearly aren’t interested in knowledge or having a productive conversation. You just want to do the propagandist prohibitionist circlejerk.
???
What lmao
It’s just a warning label not a prohibition
Alright, if that is true, and its not a baby step towards prohibition, let me fill you in on it. We fucking know and we don’t fucking care.
Stop wasting government time and resources on empty soapboxing.
We know what the propaganda says.
Slippery slope fallacy. Also a lot of people actually don’t know that alcohol causes cancer and heart disease as well as homicide, etc. A lot of gullible people drink it because they are socially led to believe that it’s OK or perhaps even necessary, but these are not thinking or informed people. The fact that you call legitimate health information about alcohol “propaganda” shows that you’re not really in the “know” camp, doesn’t it?
Alcohol causes HOMICIDE?!
Jesus, can I have whatever you are smoking?
Not smoking, drinking
No one recreationally smokes the same way that people might drink every once in a while.
You also have a lot of money spent by various alcohol manufacturers to keep alcohol from being treated like tobacco. If anything, drinking went up a lot with millennials.
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@HobbitFoot @NightOwl
I know quite a few people who only smoke on the rare occasions they have a drink.
I was not one of them.