The price of gas in America

[Weltall]

Alchohol... yeah, it's definitely bad. But is there as clear a direct link between "consume any amount ever and you immediately start reducing your life expectancy" as tobacco has?

Of course. And not only can you immediately reduce your life expectancy to zero immediately, alcohol allows the added benefit of enabling you to reduce the life expectancy of other people to zero immediately too, so we can easily determine from accidents caused by drunk drivers.

There's no question that alcohol is a far bigger threat to health than tobacco. Cigarettes kill you over a span of many years. Alcohol can kill you the very first time you have too much. It can also kill you the second or third or tenth. You can drink yourself into a coma the very first time you get ahold of enough. Of course, there's plenty of long-term damage to be served up as well, liver damage, kidney failure, stomach damage, heart damage, you name it.

And, even if it doesn't kill you directly, it can ruin you, ruin your family, ruin your career, if you lose the ability to control it. Alcohol is the fuel behind all sorts of terrible things, and it's not good for you to boot.

Cigarettes? Well, they stink, and make people cough. They can kill people who go overboard smoking them for many, many years. But they're nowhere near as dangerous as firewater, not immediately, not long-term.