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Can we just accept that humans have a special relationship with stuff that gets us high* and accept that it has to be treated differently to everything else?
Fair enough, I agree we do want to get out of our heads, but we also live with folks who can't moderate that behaviour.
All the drug policy is shaped to help those people. The folks that smoke @ernielynch 10 fags isn't a drain, and neither is the one that just drinks a pint, but the ones that smoke 40 a day or drink 10 pints, and those will be the same folks who won't be able to cope with an environment that has other ways of harming themselves (lower effects thankfully) and society more widely, and given that any time "big corporations" get in on the act of making things very very addictive will absolutely go way beyond anything we can cope with (see, every tobacco firm ever, but also Purdue for example) The damaging effects to us may be incalculable
Ironically the previous labour govt decided that prohibition on smoking was the way forth, but they also put forwards a referendum on legalising weed, so they could accept that the war on drugs failed for weed, but they felt they could win the war on drugs on tobacco. Ya can't have it both ways. New govt is not making it easier to get ciggies, but they just canned a project that would have failed anyway (the last govt was great at talking a big story, then failing to deliver).
The last govt decided to borrow $90B and then sprayed the $$ everywhere with bugger all to show for it, so the new govt has to rein in govt spending and attempt to deal with the debt mountain they inherited.
The voters decided that the previous govt was pretty pants and from the labour victory with 52% of the vote in 2020, they crashed on the current election to 26%. This is the biggest crash in voting in the 30 year history of MMP in NZ, so shows how unpopular the previous govt was.
Unfortunately many younger New Zealanders have decided to move overseas with ~2% of the population leaving in the last year. They are many young people 20-30, skilled and qualified and maybe they will go back, but maybe they won't. Not good for NZ in the long term.
Fair enough, I agree we do want to get out of our heads, but we also live with folks who can’t moderate that behaviour.
Most people can partake of psychoactive substances and not get addicted. Often when people talk about drug addiction (outside of genuinely addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine) what they are really talking about is a mental health condition where one of the symptoms is abuse of substances. Alcohol comes under this category.
Cigarettes will make anyone addicted to them, regardless of the state of their mental health.
Anyway the point remains, whether you smoke 3 or 35 cigarettes a day it is harmful to your health. Low levels of alcohol almost always have no significantly negative effect on health.
In the short term, yes, that's true Over a longer term, no its not.
But drugs policies aren't there to deal with you @ernielynch, you're not the problem, the folks that can't moderate their behaviour are the problem, they're the ones that add to the costs and have life changing effects on themselves and wider society through their addictions. Those folks are for whom our drug policies are designed.
In the short term, yes, that’s true Over a longer term, no its not.
Yeah, but where are the studies that prove drinking within recommended levels has serious long term effects to anything like the same extent even a few cigarettes per day will?
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/5/315
Yeah, but where are the studies that prove drinking within recommended levels has serious long term effects to anything like the same extent even a few cigarettes per day will?
Scroll down for the long term disease risks
Scroll down for the long term disease risks
I did. The first thing it said was:
Drinking large amounts of alcohol for many years will take its toll on many of the body's organs and may cause organ damage.
I asked for medical studies showing the effects of long term moderate drinking, not heavy drinking.
you @ernielynch, you’re not the problem
That's great to hear. For the record I started smoking regularly at the age of 13, for decades I smoked approximately 35 fags a day. I gave up years ago and then after a long break I started social smoking in the evening only, I relished the fact that I could control my smoking to 2-4 fags in the evening, I actually did that for several years, it was like I was on a mission to prove that I could be in control.
I eventually stopped because it became very obvious that it was having a negative impact on my health.
I also stopped drinking alcohol some time back. I have never been an excessive drinker but I was brought up to drink alcohol from a young age.
I never miss alcohol but I will always miss smoking for the rest of my life. If it wasn't so dangerous I would definitely have a fag later this evening. But I wouldn't drink alcohol. Alcohol free Guinness is nice though, I would have one of those.
I asked for medical studies showing the effects of long term moderate drinking, not heavy drinking.
They're the same. There's no safe quantity of alcohol. You'll be at risk if you drink the recommended 14 units of alcohol over an extended period of time.
but I will always miss smoking for the rest of my life
I gave up over 20 years ago, and still dream about post-dinner ciggies, one of the finest small luxuries there is.
They’re the same. There’s no safe quantity of alcohol.
The link you posted says this:
Alcohol misuse is when you drink in a way that's harmful, or when you're dependent on alcohol. To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level, both men and women are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units a week.
As far as I know there is no one anywhere saying 'Don't smoke more than 14 cigarettes a week' because it has been proven that even smoking a couple every day has serious long term health implications.
As far as I know there is no such proof for moderate drinking. If there is then please post it.
As far as I know there is no such proof for moderate drinking. If there is then please post it.
There are hundreds, here's one from the Lancet
Extract:
In the EU, light to moderate alcohol consumption (<20 g of pure alcohol per day, which is equivalent to consumption of approximately <1·5 L of wine [12% alcohol by volume; ABV], <3·5 L of beer [5% ABV], or <450 mL of spirits [40% ABV] per week) was associated with almost 23 000 new cancer cases in 2017, accounting for 13·3% of all alcohol-attributable cancers and for 2·3% of all cases of the seven alcohol-related cancer types.4
Almost half of these cancers (approximately 11 000 cases) were female breast cancers. Also, more than a third of the cancer cases attributed to light to moderate drinking (approximately 8500 cases) were associated with a light drinking level (<10 g per day).
These folk reckon drinking a bottle of wine per week carries about the same risk as smoking 5 cigarettes for men and 10 for women per week.
I know very few people who smoke 5 - 10 cigarettes per week. Even the link I posted says the average UK smoker smokes 11 per day. I doubt the average UK drinker is drinking a bottle (or two) of wine every night.
While you can quite rightly say there are health risks associated with moderate drinking, they are nothing like the health risks associated with 'moderate' smoking to such an extent that there is no such thing as moderate smoking.
@BruceWee - the recommendations for 14/21 units of alcohol per week are arbitrary. It's not that it's safe below this level and unsafe above it - a common misconception, even amongst doctors.
Every unit of alcohol carries a risk.
Every unit of alcohol carries a risk.
But again, not even close to the same risks smoking does.
Like I said, a man smoking 10 cigarettes a day would have to be drinking two bottles of wine a night to have the same cancer risks*.
Moderate drinking is not even in the same postcode as the average smoker.
*Of course, if he was drinking two bottles of wine a night then we are looking at a whole host of other health factors but we are talking about moderate drinking here and this is just to illustrate how false the equivalency is.
Like I've said multiple times, the effects of these drugs are so different they are simply not comparable and I have no idea what people think constantly bringing up alcohol adds to this discussion.
I have no idea what people think constantly bringing up alcohol adds to this discussion
Perhaps that prohibition isn't a good idea?
Perhaps that prohibition isn’t a good idea?
Can you have a read of the thread before contributing?
No need to get snippy.
Your point has been responded to many times already. It was a pithy comment yes, but annoying for those of us who have already spent time typing out reasons why it's not relevant.
n the EU, light to moderate alcohol consumption (<20 g of pure alcohol per day, which is equivalent to consumption of approximately <1·5 L of wine [12% alcohol by volume; ABV], <3·5 L of beer [5% ABV], or <450 mL of spirits [40% ABV] per week)
That's quite a definition of light to moderate drinking, but I'm all for it, cheers.
EDIT: Missed the per week at end - that makes more sense, strange though the vast majority of studies support the J curve where moderate drinking is slightly better than no drinking.
there is no such thing as moderate smoking.
It is increasingly evident that the same is true of alcohol.
For historical reasons we've chosen the wrong drugs to make legal, that's obvious to everyone, and its obvious to everyone that our current drug policy is non-sensical. But given the hyper-capitalist society we live in now, introducing more drugs (even if they were less harmful on an individual level) is IMO problematic.
For starters we cannot even trust the companies that make medicines for pain management not to conspire to maximize profit at the expense of patient health.
Allowing those same corporations (drug, alcohol, tobacco, food firms) and entrusting them to make and sell a different group mind-altering drugs for casual consumption (and that is surely where it'd end up, regardless of where it started) is never going to end well, because I don't trust any corporation or government not to maximise profit at the expense of the customer, or indeed advertise at children to capture markets early, or glamourize it or any of the other insidious things that they'd eventually be allowed to do. See: Vaping. And everyone thought that one was safe.
strange though the vast majority of studies support the J curve where moderate drinking is slightly better than no drinking.
But relies on a huge amount of other factors for it's proof, such as wealth, overall health, less likely to be overweight, tend not to smoke, better education, tend to live in better areas, tend not to have been in prison and so on and on. Separate out all those factors and the J curve looks increasingly less robust.
and I have no idea what people think constantly bringing up alcohol adds to this discussion.
Because at the societal level the harmful effects of alcohol far far outweigh the harmful effects of smoking that's why.
@mefty the illusion of the J-curve has been thoroughly debunked.
I believe that a fair amount of the studies that purported to show it had funding from the alcohol industry too.
the illusion of the J-curve has been thoroughly debunked.
Who by, the Temperance Movement is alive and well, people just love telling people how to live their lives.
Can't remember off the top of my head, but there have been a few independent meta-analyses as far as I'm aware.
people just love telling people how to live their lives
If you treat addiction to harmful substances as an individual not a societal issue... you fail.
the Temperance Movement is alive and well
No, not in the UK. It died a death about a hundred years ago.
It died a death about a hundred years ago.
Not in Rossendale...
We were talking about Fitzpatrick's last night... and how the time is probably right to try setting up new bars selling only alcohol free beers etc.
EDIT: promoted by Brooklyn Special Effects being on draught in the Brudenell
Not in Rossendale…
Sure it qualifies to be described as a movement?
So the position of many seems to be that the facts that:
- Prohibition hasn't worked for drugs that are deemed to be more addictive and harmful than smoking.
- Prohibition didn't work for alcohol, which is deemed to be less addictive and harmful than smoking.
- There are other ways of reducing smoking rates, short of prohibition, which have been shown to be effective.
Are all irrelevant because there's something inherently special about tobacco that makes it uniquely suitable to be dealt with by outright prohibition, and the facts above that seem to suggest that, in general prohibition doesn't work, are (conveniently) irrelevant to the discussion.
Not in Rossendale…
We demand the finest wines...
Because at the societal level the harmful effects of alcohol far far outweigh the harmful effects of smoking that’s why.
No matter how much you repeat something that is wrong it doesn't make it true.
In many cases alcohol abuse is a symptom of a mental heath issue, not a cause. Same with all non-addictive recreational drugs. The damage done on a societal level should be treated by tackling the conditions that lead to alcohol abuse. If you just try to treat the symptom then the root cause is just going to manifest itself in other ways.
Tobacco is the beginning and the end of the problems it causes. You can be in 100% tip top mental health and still hopelessly addicted to nicotine. It is a highly addictive drug that has very poor health outcomes, even for people who smoke a 'moderate' amount.
For the last time, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME DRUG.
No matter how much you repeat something that is wrong it doesn’t make it true.
And vice versa.
A&E isn't full of smokers on a Saturday night.
For the last time, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME DRUG.
No-one has suggested they are. 🤷♂️
No matter how much you repeat something that is wrong it doesn’t make it true
I don't think you really understand what you're talking about, frankly
Except it’s not prohibition, is it?
That would be banning tobacco for everyone overnight. You know that’s not what we’re talking about, right?
If you're below the age, it's going to look a lot like prohibition. And eventually it is going to be prohibition.
Are all irrelevant because there’s......
You missed out also irrelevant because both Labour and Tories (the next PM will be one of the two) support a rolling minimum age for smoking. Plus apparently do almost two thirds of voters.
No-one has suggested they are. 🤷♂️
And yet you have insisted on discussing alcohol for at least the last two pages. Because apparently it's relevant. Which it isn't.
I don’t think you really understand what you’re talking about, frankly
That makes at least one of us.
As I said, you can be 100% mentally healthy and still 100% addicted to nicotine.
Can the same be said for alcohol?
Trying to treat both the same completely ignores the underlying causes of alcohol abuse (mental health) and tobacco abuse (tobacco).
Plus apparently do almost two thirds of voters
Popular doesn't mean right. Prohibition of drugs remains stubbornly popular I believe.
No it means that with support from the two main parties and a clear majority of voters it will very likely become law.
Btw would you like the current tobacco sales prohibition scrapped?
To under 18s, no, not that I think it's particularly effective or realistically enforceable.
I think most of the reduction in smoking in young people is due to the popularity of vaping.
Young people tend to rebel against their elders so I suggest we tell them to smoke, drink and most importantly never ever ride mountain bikes. They'll be the healthiest generation ever.