Some here are arguing against Prohibition while* no one here is arguing for it*. Specifically I am stating that I do not think Prohibition is a good idea and do not think so even for heroin, even moreso for adult heroin use (again as that use has less impact on others than the person making the “educated” choice). I honestly cannot understand why you find that objectionable. Mind you childhood use (which is a major problem in my communities West of Chicago) is a completely different matter. But the subject is allowing adults to make decisions that harm them, up to some limit of imposing harms on others. Heroin fits the criteria of not harming others more than does alcohol overuse.
The relevance of that should be far from confusing.
Okay the mortality data. Gets interesting. The best I could find was this 2011 BMJ meta=analysis
But complicated stuff. Potential confounders abound. Are abstainers less social (with social connections of well established potective impact)? So on. Sorry but that’s the best I can come up with without doing more than I have the time to do.
All I can add is that an obsession with the numbers does not tell the whole tale. You can statisticulate until hell thaws, but it doesn’t address individual variance, or choices.
Y’know you’re right. What does it matter that fewer people die in car accidents if seat belts are used? That doesn’t address individual variation or choice. Lots of people don’t use seat belts and are fine. I’ve heard some people were saved by not wearing seat belts! Much better to go by what you hear and well “believe” than silly things like actual facts and figures and statisticulations.
In any case this latest flurry of figures was in response to a request from pool. And the last one does seem to confirm what (s)he had heard, depending on the value for “heavy drinker”: males having 2 to 4 drinks a day and females 1 to 2, which by most definitions is within the heavy range despite those authors calling that “low”, had lower mortality rates than abstainers. Above that the drinkers’ mortality rate was greater and ket increasing with greater intake but still.
Does anyone else here find themselves drinking less as they grow older? I had my time in my college days and other periods as a young buck. But I just don’t feel the need as much these days. I’ll go weeks without a drink now, but then meet up with friends and drink a lot over a weekend. I don’t mean like in my college days, but the curve definitely spikes. Then nothing for days and weeks again. I do always celebrate the end of each month with a couple or three large Singha beers.
Part of that is I see so many farangs (Westerners) over here who are here basically to drink, sometimes every waking hour. My age or at least pushing middle age and they’re still acting like overgrown frat boys. A sad sight.
