New study says pot bigger cancer risk than tobacco

[Zac Naloen]

Society has changed now for certain, it's even easier to make alcohol in your bath tub now

Industrial production offers economy of scale and distribution. Therefore, the price of homebrewn stuff would be higher - indeed, there is no stock buying of production resources for alcohol production, no industrial-scale manufacturing.

The price is guaranteed to be higher, and the quantity of production should technically be lower (in case you can also effectively prevent smuggling).

It certainly would be, but would people be unwilling to pay it?

and I doubt most people looking to get tanked really care about the quality of the alcohol.

[Xisiqomelir]

I hate no edit in N&P.

I hate to ask heretical questions, but just how bad was alcohol prohibition, in terms of lives lost? After all, the death toll from alcohol is estimated at roughly 80000 per year according to the CDC. That's an awful lot; we're talking about a staggering million deaths every 12 years or so.

I'm not saying that we should bring back prohibition because it just didn't seem to work at stemming alcohol availability, but if it were hypothetically possible to actually prevent liquor availability, couldn't one argue that it would be worth it, even if the criminal violence cost thousands of deaths per year? Admittedly, this is more of a hypothetical thought exercise than a practical scenario.

The true cost of prohibition was much higher than the street violence in Chicago, it the fundamental undermining of social infrastructure. By magnifying mob revenue so greatly, the 18th Amendment also guaranteed the corruption of the judiaciary and police and the flourishing of all the associated branches of organized crime. Drunk drivers and cirrhosis are a lower social cost than crooked cops and judges.

[K. A. Pital]

It certainly would be, but would people be unwilling to pay it?

There are ways to determine it, like taxing the hell out of alcohol and looking at elasticity patterns, making a local experiment of driving up prices several times and look if it impacts consumption.

I doubt most people looking to get tanked really care about the quality of the alcohol.

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but if there's a place where the consumer takes on responsibility for buying illegal and potentially deadly shit, it's here. If it's legally available, that normalizes the behaviour and makes it socially acceptable to be a drunkard - and the state secures the well-being of drunkards, consumers of junk foods, and - in case of legalization of heavier addiction agents - outright junkies.

If the shit is deadly and low-quality enough, a person might think twice before ending his life in a way worthy of a Darwin award.

Of course, that's me holding too much hopes for humans. Truth is they're probably dumb enough to go through with that.

[Jadeite]

I hate to ask heretical questions, but just how bad was alcohol prohibition, in terms of lives lost? After all, the death toll from alcohol is estimated at roughly 80000 per year according to the CDC. That's an awful lot; we're talking about a staggering million deaths every 12 years or so.

I'm not saying that we should bring back prohibition because it just didn't seem to work at stemming alcohol availability, but if it were hypothetically possible to actually prevent liquor availability, couldn't one argue that it would be worth it, even if the criminal violence cost thousands of deaths per year? Admittedly, this is more of a hypothetical thought exercise than a practical scenario.

Assuming that one could actually prevent a thriving black market from springing up, keep in mind that the liquor industry brought in $18.1 billion dollars in 2007. It might save lives, but it'll cost a lot of jobs and profit.

I support the legalization of marijuana for that same reason, there's a ton of money to be potentially be made and jobs to be created. Cigarettes however, I do support banning,

[Alferd Packer]

There are ways to determine it, like taxing the hell out of alcohol and looking at elasticity patterns, making a local experiment of driving up prices several times and look if it impacts consumption.

I would submit that if it gets bad enough, people would brew their own. Beer is especially easy to make, as it requires only cheap and easily acquired ingredients and equipment. All other things being equal, and going by standard batching of the homebrew community, you've cut a given household's potential consumption down to 8-19 liters of self-brewed beer per brewing period, which can range from 14 to 30 days. Of course, if that's inadequate there's nothing to prevent the homebrewer from doubling or tripling his production, because the parts are all cheap and easy to acquire.

I really don't think it gets you anywhere, really. You stop people who can take or leave alcohol from drinking at all, and you force the alcoholics to make their own. It'll definitely impact consumption of commercially produced booze, but like I said, beer is unbelievably easy(and safe) to make, when compared to the rest of the spectrum of alcohol.

[Darth Wong]

I hate no edit in N&P.

I hate to ask heretical questions, but just how bad was alcohol prohibition, in terms of lives lost? After all, the death toll from alcohol is estimated at roughly 80000 per year according to the CDC. That's an awful lot; we're talking about a staggering million deaths every 12 years or so.

I'm not saying that we should bring back prohibition because it just didn't seem to work at stemming alcohol availability, but if it were hypothetically possible to actually prevent liquor availability, couldn't one argue that it would be worth it, even if the criminal violence cost thousands of deaths per year? Admittedly, this is more of a hypothetical thought exercise than a practical scenario.

The true cost of prohibition was much higher than the street violence in Chicago, it the fundamental undermining of social infrastructure. By magnifying mob revenue so greatly, the 18th Amendment also guaranteed the corruption of the judiaciary and police and the flourishing of all the associated branches of organized crime. Drunk drivers and cirrhosis are a lower social cost than crooked cops and judges.

So an unspecified number of "crooked cops and judges" are necessarily worse than a million deaths over 12 years? How do you arrive at this conclusion?

[FireNexus]

If it were actually possible to strictly limit the availability of drugs and alcohol, then yes, prohibition would work swimmingly and would be the most moral of all possible choices. That not being the case, we end up adding street violence, combined with the destruction caused to poor urban areas, into the drugs' death toll.

[Darth Servo]

I hate no edit in N&P.

I hate to ask heretical questions, but just how bad was alcohol prohibition, in terms of lives lost? After all, the death toll from alcohol is estimated at roughly 80000 per year according to the CDC. That's an awful lot; we're talking about a staggering million deaths every 12 years or so.

I'm not saying that we should bring back prohibition because it just didn't seem to work at stemming alcohol availability, but if it were hypothetically possible to actually prevent liquor availability, couldn't one argue that it would be worth it, even if the criminal violence cost thousands of deaths per year? Admittedly, this is more of a hypothetical thought exercise than a practical scenario.

The true cost of prohibition was much higher than the street violence in Chicago, it the fundamental undermining of social infrastructure. By magnifying mob revenue so greatly, the 18th Amendment also guaranteed the corruption of the judiaciary and police and the flourishing of all the associated branches of organized crime. Drunk drivers and cirrhosis are a lower social cost than crooked cops and judges.

I'd say the "true cost" was a lot of things put together. How many people killed themselves from things like bathtub gin? Alternative alcohols like methanol, propanol, etc?

[Molyneux]

I hate no edit in N&P.

I hate to ask heretical questions, but just how bad was alcohol prohibition, in terms of lives lost? After all, the death toll from alcohol is estimated at roughly 80000 per year according to the CDC. That's an awful lot; we're talking about a staggering million deaths every 12 years or so.

I'm not saying that we should bring back prohibition because it just didn't seem to work at stemming alcohol availability, but if it were hypothetically possible to actually prevent liquor availability, couldn't one argue that it would be worth it, even if the criminal violence cost thousands of deaths per year? Admittedly, this is more of a hypothetical thought exercise than a practical scenario.

The true cost of prohibition was much higher than the street violence in Chicago, it the fundamental undermining of social infrastructure. By magnifying mob revenue so greatly, the 18th Amendment also guaranteed the corruption of the judiaciary and police and the flourishing of all the associated branches of organized crime. Drunk drivers and cirrhosis are a lower social cost than crooked cops and judges.

So an unspecified number of "crooked cops and judges" are necessarily worse than a million deaths over 12 years? How do you arrive at this conclusion?

Because suicide is better than almost single-handedly creating the modern mob.

To sum up: The last time we tried banning alcohol, we made the fucking Mafia!

[Frank Hipper]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.

If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Society has changed now for certain, it's even easier to make alcohol in your bath tub now

Industrial production offers economy of scale and distribution. Therefore, the price of homebrewn stuff would be higher - indeed, there is no stock buying of production resources for alcohol production, no industrial-scale manufacturing.

The price is guaranteed to be higher, and the quantity of production should technically be lower (in case you can also effectively prevent smuggling).

Well this rests on two assumptions, 1.) that skyrocketing price rationally leads to lower consumption (a dubious assertion with a good whose social cost is largely due to his addictiveness), and 2.) that the risk to society associated with a given volume of alcohol production remains the same - it does not.

[Lagmonster]

Knowing nothing about law enforcement, can anyone give a realistic answer to what costs more in money, effort and infrastructure: Chasing down criminal bootleggers and smugglers versus keeping drunk drivers off the road.

It would seem that the former make an easier target: people who are willing to break the law will already be doing so in whatever market makes money, so I can't see the creation of criminals who didn't already exist - but any random normally law-abiding person on any random day could become a drunk driver, making them harder to predict, locate and stop.

[Darth Wong]

Well this rests on two assumptions, 1.) that skyrocketing price rationally leads to lower consumption (a dubious assertion with a good whose social cost is largely due to his addictiveness), and 2.) that the risk to society associated with a given volume of alcohol production remains the same - it does not.

Declining tobacco sales in Ontario have been correlated to price increases. Observation would seem to contradict your assertion.

[Darth Wong]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.

If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

I probably should have declared it as a sci-fi what-if scenario, so that people would get the point.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Well this rests on two assumptions, 1.) that skyrocketing price rationally leads to lower consumption (a dubious assertion with a good whose social cost is largely due to his addictiveness), and 2.) that the risk to society associated with a given volume of alcohol production remains the same - it does not.

Declining tobacco sales in Ontario have been correlated to price increases. Observation would seem to contradict your assertion.

Data is different from asserting that people will make 'rational' economic decisions based on price relating to addictive substances on the basis of theory.

[Zac Naloen]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.

If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

In that case the simple answer is, they'll find something else to get high on and that will be probably be just as bad for them.


There will always be people who like to get high, and there will always be some who do it to the extreme.

[Darth Wong]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.

If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

In that case the simple answer is, they'll find something else to get high on and that will be probably be just as bad for them.

And you base this prediction on ...?

You can't make a prediction by simply saying it will be so. We're talking about a million fucking deaths over 12 years; this isn't something you can just shrug off.

[Alferd Packer]

While I can't speak for all consumers of alcohol, I can say with certainty that I wouldn't turn to pot or crystal meth if I suddenly found myself in a hypothetical world where alcohol didn't exist. I just wouldn't have any booze in the house. It'd be akin to the times where I discover I've finished off the last beer in the fridge, and I find myself too lazy to bother to get more until the weekend, except extended indefinitely.

It's important to note that for many people, alcohol isn't a big deal. What would most likely occur in this world without alcohol is that there would be some number of people, perhaps on the order of ten times the number who die because of alcohol, who turn to other drugs to get fucked up. That sounds high, but recall that these people are most likely chronic abusers of alcohol already. They're just getting their fix in a different way now. For the bulk of drinkers, they'd probably be annoyed that they couldn't get booze anymore, but it'd be akin to when your favorite restaurant closes down or stops serving your favorite dish, and not a life-changing catastrophe.

[General Zod]

It's important to note that for many people, alcohol isn't a big deal. What would most likely occur in this world without alcohol is that there would be some number of people, perhaps on the order of ten times the number who die because of alcohol, who turn to other drugs to get fucked up.

I find this highly dubious. It's not as if every lush out for a fix is going to know where to go to get a drug that'll get him equally fucked up. I agree that there would be some out there who would go to other sources, but ten times the amount of those who die through alcohol? Come on.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well this rests on two assumptions, 1.) that skyrocketing price rationally leads to lower consumption (a dubious assertion with a good whose social cost is largely due to his addictiveness), and 2.) that the risk to society associated with a given volume of alcohol production remains the same - it does not.

Declining tobacco sales in Ontario have been correlated to price increases. Observation would seem to contradict your assertion.

And the increase in prices I imagine is correlated with an increased social stigma on smoking which may prevent people from ever starting. You have to untangle the causal chains before that correlation means anything

There are social forces involved to a large degree. In the case of alcohol, people use it for many reasons, and the reasons a person drinks will determine how they react if the substance were to become unavailable somehow (method irrelevant)

Social drinkers: People who drink because it is expected of them socially. This includes most college students, the majority of working adults, etc. Some other activity would probably become a substitute for alcohol. If the decrease of social inhibitions is what primarily drives the social expectation of drinking, then some other mild inhibition-releasing drug will probably be substituted. Potentially something made for that exact purpose. If the reason social drinkers exist is purely cultural then a benign activity will be substituted. Like drinking Sprite.

Problem Mitigation: People who drink primarily for this reason are the people who have a lot of "problems" and use alcohol as a medication. This includes bi polar individuals, schizophrenics, and people down on their luck. They will probably substitute other drugs, usually downers.

Those are just a couple examples of what could happen.

So an unspecified number of "crooked cops and judges" are necessarily worse than a million deaths over 12 years? How do you arrive at this conclusion?

Assumption: We use a prohibition model. I know it is not what you specified, but I thought this was worth looking at.

It is not necessarily worse, but it could be. I would take a more holistic outlook based upon broad societal consequences. A corrupt political and judicial system does more than cause deaths, which it certainly does.

You end up with rigged elections, rigged trials, unchecked racketeering, (more)brutal prostitution rings, increased human trafficking, slavery. The list goes on. Too much of it and the system sill cease functioning entirely and we could descent into de facto anarchy.

One effect, in this case the corruption of judges and police can have numerous secondary effects in many realms of society. Economics (you will get increased wealth concentration in the hands of powerful business interests and those who are no longer worried about bribing judges for example) corrupt politicians who make decisions based upon flat out bribes (Oh look the building codes just got deregulated)

I think that damage... society chaos... outweighs a million deaths over 12 years.

[Alferd Packer]

It's important to note that for many people, alcohol isn't a big deal. What would most likely occur in this world without alcohol is that there would be some number of people, perhaps on the order of ten times the number who die because of alcohol, who turn to other drugs to get fucked up.

I find this highly dubious. It's not as if every lush out for a fix is going to know where to go to get a drug that'll get him equally fucked up. I agree that there would be some out there who would go to other sources, but ten times the amount of those who die through alcohol? Come on.

Well, ask yourself this: for each person who dies from alcohol, how many more chronic abusers of it live, or, are killed my something completely unrelated to their alcoholism? How many drunk drivers simply get lucky and make it home from the bar every time? How many alcoholics' livers continue to withstand the punishment? How many accidents brought on by drunkenness don't result in any significant injury? Saying there are only on the order of only 800,000 such people in the U.S. is probably a generous underestimate to begin with. It won't be every lush. It'll probably be every fifth lush, and that'll still be on the order of ten times greater than those dying from alcohol each year.

Similarly, you can't assume that, without alcohol, the bulk of these people will simply straighten up and fly right. Firstly, they're definitely going to go through very painful withdrawals. Maybe they'll medicate those with pills and gain a new addiction. Secondly, a great number of people simply have difficulty coping with their shitty lot in life, and require an escape to function. Alcohol is easy to obtain and convenient. Without it, they'll turn to the next easiest means of escape, whatever that may be.

[HemlockGrey]

The OP study conclusions strike me as a bit off-the-mark. How many cannabis users actually smoke a joint a day? Taking that as the baseline to assess the risk of cannabis smoking versus cigeratte smoking strike seems like a foolish assumption.

[General Zod]

Well, ask yourself this: for each person who dies from alcohol, how many more chronic abusers of it live, or, are killed my something completely unrelated to their alcoholism? How many drunk drivers simply get lucky and make it home from the bar every time? How many alcoholics' livers continue to withstand the punishment? How many accidents brought on by drunkenness don't result in any significant injury? Saying there are only on the order of only 800,000 such people in the U.S. is probably a generous underestimate to begin with. It won't be every lush. It'll probably be every fifth lush, and that'll still be on the order of ten times greater than those dying from alcohol each year.

I think you're skewing the numbers somewhat. There's the fact that that death toll includes people who have died through an alcoholic's actions, such as car crashes. And the fact that many of these deaths could be one-offs, such as someone choosing to drive while plastered when they should have called a cab and getting themselves killed, while they may not necessarily be alcoholics themselves. So yes, attempting to say it's ten times more is a rather large overestimate with nothing besides your say-so.

Similarly, you can't assume that, without alcohol, the bulk of these people will simply straighten up and fly right. Firstly, they're definitely going to go through very painful withdrawals. Maybe they'll medicate those with pills and gain a new addiction. Secondly, a great number of people simply have difficulty coping with their shitty lot in life, and require an escape to function. Alcohol is easy to obtain and convenient. Without it, they'll turn to the next easiest means of escape, whatever that may be.

You can't just assume that someone will automatically turn to another drug either. How many of these people would even know what to look for to get their fix? How many of them would be willing to use a needle or light up a pipe instead of swigging from a bottle? You're over-simplifying things.

[Zac Naloen]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.

If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

In that case the simple answer is, they'll find something else to get high on and that will be probably be just as bad for them.

And you base this prediction on ...?

You can't make a prediction by simply saying it will be so. We're talking quabout a million fucking deaths over 12 years; this isn't something you can just shrug off.

I'm not shrugging anything off. I'm basing my opinion that they'll replace the drug with something else off of personal anecdotes of people who replace alcohol with drugs. Mostly Ecstasy which definately is getting more mainstream, even out of the rave crowd. Source

Take away alcohol as a mainstream drug do you think people young people will just stop wanting to get high on the weekend?

Either they'll find alternative ways of getting alcohol or they'll replace it.

The 12 million deaths from alcohol related illnesses are deaths of people who are either dependant of alcohol or binge drink socially. These are exactly the sort of people Alyrium describes who are going to want to replace the alcohol with something else.

Casual drinkers (i.e those, like me only go to the pub a few times a month) aren't going to be affected. They'd probably stop drinking entirely. It's not like my social calender revolves around it. but those aren't the ones who are being killed by excessive drinking. Source



But that doesn't take away the fact that the hypothetical scenario is rather pointless. You can't just magic alcohol away. You can make it from pretty much anything with sugar in it if you set yourself to the task.

You can't just assume that someone will automatically turn to another drug either. How many of these people would even know what to look for to get their fix? How many of them would be willing to use a needle or light up a pipe instead of swigging from a bottle? You're over-simplifying things.

How many would just take a simple pill on offer in pretty much every bar in the world?[/quote]

[aerius]

Mike asked specifically what people thought would happen if liquor was unavailable, yet people are replying with Prohibition as the model; liquor was widely available during prohibition, and the situation does not equate to Mike's scenario.
If booze were simply and totally eliminated, the benefits would be tedious in the extreme to try and list; of course it would be worth it all.

In that case the simple answer is, they'll find something else to get high on and that will be probably be just as bad for them.

And you base this prediction on ...?
You can't make a prediction by simply saying it will be so. We're talking about a million fucking deaths over 12 years; this isn't something you can just shrug off.

The only example I can think of is what happened on some Native Indian reserves a while back. Alcoholism was (and I believe still is) a major problem, and some reserves banned alcohol altogether and apparently did a pretty good job of it. Which then led to the natives huffing gasoline to get intoxicated.