14th August 2005, 11:06 PM
Quote: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.
Well yes, once you factor in stupidity (that is, driving drunk) it certainly does...
Quote: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.
Alchohol is the biggest drug killer in the US... but the fact that the direct health implications of drinking it aren't as bad as for other drugs, other than impaired judgement for a while, makes it harder to ban... of course, the ease of making it also doesn't help much there. At least with tobacco you need one specific plant...
As for the other part, of course overindulgence is bad. But overindulgence of ANYTHING is bad, and we can't ban everything... the question is the amount that is required to cause permanant health damage. That's the point where the government should step in...
Quote: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.
Actually, smoking immediately reduces your life expectancy... the sooner you quit the more you will recover, but it'd never be the same as if you'd never smoked.