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Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

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Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#11

Post by Hytosys »

adwf wrote: post #8
Zigurd wrote: post #3

You have to wonder what the economic impact would be if government policy were driven by a top ten list of quality-of-life issues. Would there be PSAs on TV suggesting a bong hit instead of a drink? Would soda pop be locked up behind the counter? "Got more milk than you can digest?" How many points of GDP would it be worth to do the necessary social engineering? The other side of the coin is: What is the total cost o…

The tricky part in my mind is determining what exactly a quality of life issue is in the first place. I know plenty of moderate, sensible drinkers who would consider their quality of life lowered if there were any more restrictions placed on alcohol. It's not just a price issue, but all sorts of things like not being able to buy alcohol on a Sunday, despite not being religious. Or one that I personally still experien…

Maybe your thoughts apply to yourself and you aren't part of the immediate problem, but binge drinking has been known to be the cause/catalyst in incidents involving bystanders (temperament, drunk driving, etc.).

To a personal extent, everyone respects free will. That's not the problem. It's certainly on another caliber, but the dissonance actuated in your arguments remind me a lot of anti-vaccine arguments.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#12

Post by ryanmim »

I drink way too much. I've accepted this. What stops me from drinking way too much? Not much, because I'm able to rationalize my drinking with the many beneficial effects touted. There's a lot of information about how drinking a bit is helpful for heart disease and how it basically reduces mortality across the board. More information is needed about how drinking is HARMFUL beyond cirrhosis and the short term effects (violence, drunk driving). I don't drive while drunk and I'm not a violent drunk, but I drink too much. I know I'm at risk for cirrhosis but I also think there are more dangers than simply that. These other negative effects need to be more prominent for those of us who are these "contributing to society" drinkers.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#14

Post by transfire »

I suspect, the salient fact that the CDC is leaving out is that many, if not most, of these are from car accidents.

Also, by qualifying it as "working-age" it skews the results heavily. What about all the people that did all that drinking and managed to make it past working age?

Lucky for us, automated cars are going to solve most of this problem in a decade or two. So a more honest assessment would answer how many adults are dying from non-vehicular drinking causes.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#15

Post by mikegioia »

hga wrote: post #7

I'm not sure this is all that surprising. Turn it around: what do we expect to be the causes for those adults between age 20 and 64 who die? I really should read up on the relevant actuarial facts, but isn't it the case that by and large those from 20 to, say, 50 plus or minus are fairly healthy?

I think what's surprising is that 1/10 is pretty high for something that technically could be prevented entirely. It has nothing to do with other causes of death.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#16

Post by sliverstorm »

mikegioia wrote: post #15
hga wrote: post #7

I'm not sure this is all that surprising. Turn it around: what do we expect to be the causes for those adults between age 20 and 64 who die? I really should read up on the relevant actuarial facts, but isn't it the case that by and large those from 20 to, say, 50 plus or minus are fairly healthy?

I think what's surprising is that 1/10 is pretty high for something that technically could be prevented entirely. It has nothing to do with other causes of death.

Most deaths in that age range could be prevented entirely. Alcohol, like many other causes, is a risk we accept in exchange for something.

I would hazard workplace & automotive accidents are also high on the list. We can prevent those entirely, very simply...

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#17

Post by SilasX »

chrisdevereux wrote: post #4
Zigurd wrote: post #3

You have to wonder what the economic impact would be if government policy were driven by a top ten list of quality-of-life issues. Would there be PSAs on TV suggesting a bong hit instead of a drink? Would soda pop be locked up behind the counter? "Got more milk than you can digest?" How many points of GDP would it be worth to do the necessary social engineering? The other side of the coin is: What is the total cost o…

Or David Nutt's suggestion that, as a public health issue, we should be trying to engineer a drug with the same subjective effects as alcohol but without the toxicity or addictiveness: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/alcohol... (such a chemical would, in practice, be immediately banned in most countries)

Phenylethylamine?

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#18

Post by Zigurd »

adwf wrote: post #8
Zigurd wrote: post #3

You have to wonder what the economic impact would be if government policy were driven by a top ten list of quality-of-life issues. Would there be PSAs on TV suggesting a bong hit instead of a drink? Would soda pop be locked up behind the counter? "Got more milk than you can digest?" How many points of GDP would it be worth to do the necessary social engineering? The other side of the coin is: What is the total cost o…

The tricky part in my mind is determining what exactly a quality of life issue is in the first place. I know plenty of moderate, sensible drinkers who would consider their quality of life lowered if there were any more restrictions placed on alcohol. It's not just a price issue, but all sorts of things like not being able to buy alcohol on a Sunday, despite not being religious. Or one that I personally still experien…

The threshold for binge drinking described in the article is well into the "I'd be smashed" territory, so there's no alcohol scaremongering in this case.

Also things like free-soloing (corrected as per comment below), and for that matter things society frowns on like needle-drug use, are self-limiting and have orders of magnitude less impact than binge drinking. That's where prioritization washes out pursuing ineffective optimizations.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#19

Post by zo1 »

SilasX wrote: post #17
chrisdevereux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or David Nutt's suggestion that, as a public health issue, we should be trying to engineer a drug with the same subjective effects as alcohol but without the toxicity or addictiveness: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/alcohol... (such a chemical would, in practice, be immediately banned in most countries)

Phenylethylamine?

We're not all bio-chemists... enlighten us.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#20

Post by zo1 »

Zigurd wrote: post #3

You have to wonder what the economic impact would be if government policy were driven by a top ten list of quality-of-life issues. Would there be PSAs on TV suggesting a bong hit instead of a drink? Would soda pop be locked up behind the counter? "Got more milk than you can digest?" How many points of GDP would it be worth to do the necessary social engineering? The other side of the coin is: What is the total cost o…

"You have to wonder what the economic impact would be if government policy were driven by a top ten list of quality-of-life issues. "

Not all issues boil down to "economic impact". Nor is it the only determining factor when deciding on such matters. You have to take into account peoples willingness, or lack thereof to do these things you speak of. Otherwise, you'll have to concede that all you're trying to do is maximize peoples' output for the purpose of benefiting the country, as if it were a farm.

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