Topic: alcohol

Alcohol still gets credit for close to 90,000 deaths every year– more than other drugs, even in the middle of an epidemic.

It can be flagrant or subtle, but damage it will be. Sadly, the drinker is usually the last one to become aware of it. In fact, many never do.

We will have to deal with electronic smoking, which has exploded among young people even as cigarette use has declined.

Of course, the drinker isn’t aware of having entered a blackout. Far as they’re concerned, things are proceeding as normal.

More likely the hope is to increase awareness of the risks, and encourage drinkers to limit consumption.

Sometimes powerful business leaders sound like drunk drivers or corner drug dealers. Rationalizing, externalizing, minimizing…

After all, you can’t afford to stop selling it. That’s not how you get promoted. What you need is science that seems to confirm your biases.

There’s an ongoing search among users for ways to either improve the high (which escalating tolerance threatens to steal away) or suppress the withdrawal symptoms.

…those users have fewer resources to pay for healthcare and legal problems that often result from more drinking. So who picks up the tab?

Of course, we still lose several hundred thousand people annually. But that’s actually progress.