A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack • Hacker News Board

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#41

Post by jlgreco » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

codesuela wrote: post #40

jlgreco wrote: post #14

Where does the societal harm from anabolic steroids come from? Is it because anabolic steroids have an illegal black market? Why don't LSD and mushrooms have that same black market induced societal harm then? And how does harm to self from anabolic steroids come under harm to self from cannibis? Has anyone ever killed their liver with cannibis? Anabolic steroids can do that, and much more, to your body. This whole th…

> This whole thing seems very bullshitty to me. I agree however > Has anyone ever killed their liver with cannibis? Liver damage from steroid abuse only applies to use of oral steroids. And even that is "only" comparable to drinking alcohol. Looking as to how professional bodybuilders utilizing steroids tend to lead a vastly more healthy lifestyle (diet, workout) than most people it'd assume it somewhat reduces overa…

Certainly steroids can be used safely, and to be clear, I think that the healthy lifestles lived by users of steroids should more than make up for any aggragate negative impact steroid use may have. I fully support the use of anabolic steroids, they are a-okay in my book.

However to say that pot can be dangerous because it's users often adopt fatass lifestyles seems a bit disingenious. You could similarly start attributing sports injuries to anabolic steroids (clearly sporting injuries would never catch up with fatass injuries, but anyway..), though that would be similarly disingenious. I think the only reasonable way to compare the drugs is to compare the harm that the substances themselves are capable of inflicting when taken in dosages that are logistically feasible.

In your fictional situation I think I would choose the unstated option c) clean up my diet, smoke pot occasionally, and go to the gym almost every day. Hmm.. come to think of it, that is already what I chose...

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#42

Post by codesuela » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:19 PM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #41

codesuela wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This whole thing seems very bullshitty to me. I agree however > Has anyone ever killed their liver with cannibis? Liver damage from steroid abuse only applies to use of oral steroids. And even that is "only" comparable to drinking alcohol. Looking as to how professional bodybuilders utilizing steroids tend to lead a vastly more healthy lifestyle (diet, workout) than most people it'd assume it somewhat reduces overa…

Certainly steroids can be used safely, and to be clear, I think that the healthy lifestles lived by users of steroids should more than make up for any aggragate negative impact steroid use may have. I fully support the use of anabolic steroids, they are a-okay in my book. However to say that pot can be dangerous because it's users often adopt fatass lifestyles seems a bit disingenious. You could similarly start attri…

> However to say that pot can be dangerous because it's users often adopt fatass lifestyles seems a bit disingenious. You could similarly start attributing sports injuries to anabolic steroids, though that would be similarly disingenious.

yes, you are completely right. I just wanted to make the point that you shouldn't promote THC as a completely harmeless wonderdrug without potential to worsen your life. I wrongfully assumed that you might fall into this camp.

> In your fictional situation I think I would choose the unstated option c) clean up my diet, smoke pot occasionally, and go to the gym almost every day. Hmm.. come to think of it, that is already what I chose...

sounds like a reasonable choice :) more power to you

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#43

Post by JVIDEL » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:23 PM UTC

I always wondered why alcohol didn't get the same restrictions that cigarettes got: sure you can still buy marlboros anywhere, they are not banned and the police wont throw you in a cell for carrying a pack, but ads for tobacco are seriously curtailed if not outright forbidden in most places and the boxes themselves are full of health warnings.

Why don't do the same with alcohol? Where I live ads for beer, wine and other drinks are literally EVERYWHERE, and the way the ads are made is plain manipulative, something even Don Draper would consider going too far. It doesn't takes a psychologist to see alcohol ads much like the cigarettes go for the exact opposite of what an addict's life is like, and just like marlboro told men they could be cowboys and go into adventures beer ads say you can party hard 24/7 and nail all the chicks you want/see by being pissing-in-your-pants drunk.

Ironically the most realistic beer ad I ever saw was Pißwasser's in GTAIV.

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#44

Post by aswanson » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

andyl wrote: post #31

I grew up in a drinking culture, and damn we loved to party. Nothing was funnier than a drunk friend doing something stupid. Twenty five years later: four of my school friends are dead from alcohol. Fuck - that kind of takes the fun out of it - I loved those people. Most people can handle drugs and alcohol just fine. But a lot of people can't.

Wow. How old were they when they died, and what were their drinking habits like throughout the years, if you don't mind sharing. If you don't feel like providing the details, understood.

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#45

Post by afterburner » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #18

sk5t wrote: post #6

This seems to me like a really simple-minded article--who is surprised that the most available, legal, inexpensive, socially-acceptable drug has the largest impact? By this measure walking down a flight of stairs is more dangerous than mountain climbing.

Are stairs more dangerous? No. Is the sum of all accidents on the stairs more costly to society than all accidents mountain-climbing? Probably. There's a reason the occasional mandatory workplace-safety education sessions you have around your office focus on things like ladders and picking up packages: people actually do those things. Postscript: Also, auto accidents cause kill more people in the US than terrorism. :…

Forget stairs, at one job my safety training included training on how to walk safely. And, while it felt silly, they were right to give it some thought (given that it was a repair job likely to involve being at unfamiliar places).

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#46

Post by shawn-butler » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

mattangriffel wrote: post #9

Wait, how is methamphetamine use not harmful to others? Doesn't methamphetamine use specifically lead to erratic behavior?

There is a high degree of confirmation bias in observation of meth users. Most are docile but when someone has a violent reaction it is usually extreme.

Unless you mean perhaps the erratic behavior/decision making caused by long-term addiction?

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#47

Post by afterburner » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

So why is cannabis so high? Especially "to others". Why did researchers rank it so high, so often? I have to wonder what the "harm" was that they were thinking of so frequently.

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#48

Post by aswanson » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

JVIDEL wrote: post #43

I always wondered why alcohol didn't get the same restrictions that cigarettes got: sure you can still buy marlboros anywhere, they are not banned and the police wont throw you in a cell for carrying a pack, but ads for tobacco are seriously curtailed if not outright forbidden in most places and the boxes themselves are full of health warnings. Why don't do the same with alcohol? Where I live ads for beer, wine and o…

beer ads say you can party hard 24/7 and nail all the chicks you want/see by being pissing-in-your-pants drunk

Hilarious. This was been the exact opposite of my experience in my younger days. If anything, alcohol tipped the odds against me in situations, in sober retrospect , would have went my way had I not been drinking. They should use celibate monasteries as a backdrop for alcohol ads.

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#49

Post by molecule » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #30

fennecfoxen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are stairs more dangerous? No. Is the sum of all accidents on the stairs more costly to society than all accidents mountain-climbing? Probably. There's a reason the occasional mandatory workplace-safety education sessions you have around your office focus on things like ladders and picking up packages: people actually do those things. Postscript: Also, auto accidents cause kill more people in the US than terrorism. :…

Funny you should mention workplace safety.. where I work there is a campaign to have people take the stairs instead of the elevators, a typically busybody approach to improving employee fitness. However an employee is far more likely sustain an injury by using the stairs compared to riding in an elevator, and particularly as they were encouraged by the employer to do so, they would have a pretty clear worker's compen…

> However an employee is far more likely sustain an injury by using the stairs compared to riding in an elevator, and particularly as they were encouraged by the employer to do so, they would have a pretty clear worker's compensation claim.

With or without encouragement by their employer, they would have a pretty clear worker's comp claim, as the injury is "in the course of employment."

Also, I would imagine that the company promoting usage of stairs has had an actuary do the cost-benefit analysis of the potential health-care savings versus the potential worker's-comp payouts.

Re: A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

#50

Post by piokoch » Sat, Apr 06, 2013, 11:01 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #10

tl;dr If you want to be healthier, switch from drinking wine to huffing butane. I've posted this before, but since I can't seem to find it in the search I'll just copy paste the explanation of why this is propaganda rather than science: - The full methodology isn't actually published anywhere. - The rankings are created by combining a lot of different factors that don't have anything to do with each other, e.g. by co…

The absurdity of that "research" can't be explained better.

In fact the study ommits the most dangerous drugs, that is those which are used to fight cancer. They are very, very dangerous... and so what.