No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

avgcorrection wrote: post #201

sokoloff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m generally pro-legalization, but there are many things that we hypothesize are safe but do not know the long-term effects of and, within living memory, have discovered that many things initially thought safe were not. People were taking X-ray images of shoe fit in department stores, we used thalidomide to treat morning sickness, etc. What society says is legal has an effect on how it is perceived and how frequentl…

> What society says is legal has an effect on how it is perceived and how frequently it’s accessed by minors, teens, young adults, and adults. Exercising a modicum of conservatism in approving all things that we think are safer than alcohol seems appropriate to me. Considering that we are talking about alcohol , this argument could just as well be used in favor of liberalization.

Post by SubiculumCode » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

Post by lenkite » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

Post by kreeben » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

yuuu wrote: post #114

jdlyga wrote: post #22

Interesting how there's a major shift in the knowledge about risks of things like sugar, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. And it usually turns out there was an industry group involved in sort of a coverup. The lesson here is to take any health claims or dismissal or risks with a grain of salt when there's a big industry behind it.

I always scoffed at people who believed "a glass of wine every night is good for you." It seems pretty obvious that ingesting literal poison every day is not good for you.

Post by paraph1n » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #159

Although I live in a place where weed is legal, I don’t use it. I enjoy the occasional glass of a nice scotch, though, and I love a good stout or porter beer. This is where it gets a little strange for me: by every metric I can think of, I’d be better off replacing alcohol with weed. There seem to be fewer negative effects, it’s not a source of empty calories, and looks like a better recreational drug in every way. A…