Sunday, November 23, 2014
Why backwards?
In "science" "news" this morning: A new "study" by the Centers for Dissident Control says heavy drinkers are rarely alcoholics.
That's not news, of course. Everyone knows how alcohol works. Some folks are automatically and permanently addicted at the first drop. Others can fall into a heavy habit and then quit easily and leave alcohol behind.
What grabbed my attention was the accompanying icon.
A fairly fashionable middle class lady.
Now, boys and girls. What is the Official Icon of Smoking? Yes, that's right. An unshaven bum. Every time. Never a fashionable lady.
How do actual bums get to be bums? By drinking, not by smoking. Generally they also smoke because one habit tends to reinforce the other, but drinking is the unquestionable INDEPENDENT VARIABLE for losing your bearings in life.
Why in the fuck do we put so much hysterical effort into anti-smoking propaganda but no effort at all into anti-alcohol propaganda?
Both habits have social benefits in moderation, and both are harmful in excess. The difference in harm is DRAMATIC.
Heavy smoking shortens your life by 5 years without destroying your brain. (In fact nicotine slows down cognitive decline.)
Heavy drinking shortens your life by 30 years and ruins your brain long before that.
Given the basic facts, we should be concentrating most of our efforts on alcohol.
Why don't we? It can't be a difference in corporate lobbying. In recent decades tobacco lobbying has always been bigger and better organized than alcohol.
North vs South? Now we're getting somewhere. Tobacco is an exclusively southern industry, while distilleries and breweries are northern or border-state industries.
But maybe it's just a matter of basic goals. What's the one overriding purpose of media and governments in this cursed former so-called "country"? Maximum death. Blood and guts. Absolute chaos. Raw total mayhem. How do you get maximum death and chaos? Alcohol.
A fairly fashionable middle class lady.
Now, boys and girls. What is the Official Icon of Smoking? Yes, that's right. An unshaven bum. Every time. Never a fashionable lady.
How do actual bums get to be bums? By drinking, not by smoking. Generally they also smoke because one habit tends to reinforce the other, but drinking is the unquestionable INDEPENDENT VARIABLE for losing your bearings in life.
Why in the fuck do we put so much hysterical effort into anti-smoking propaganda but no effort at all into anti-alcohol propaganda?
Both habits have social benefits in moderation, and both are harmful in excess. The difference in harm is DRAMATIC.
Heavy smoking shortens your life by 5 years without destroying your brain. (In fact nicotine slows down cognitive decline.)
Heavy drinking shortens your life by 30 years and ruins your brain long before that.
Given the basic facts, we should be concentrating most of our efforts on alcohol.
Why don't we? It can't be a difference in corporate lobbying. In recent decades tobacco lobbying has always been bigger and better organized than alcohol.
North vs South? Now we're getting somewhere. Tobacco is an exclusively southern industry, while distilleries and breweries are northern or border-state industries.
But maybe it's just a matter of basic goals. What's the one overriding purpose of media and governments in this cursed former so-called "country"? Maximum death. Blood and guts. Absolute chaos. Raw total mayhem. How do you get maximum death and chaos? Alcohol.Labels: Natural law = Sharia law
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