Posted on 02/03/2003 9:54:04 AM PST by MrLeRoy
As law enforcement lobbies members of Congress and state legislators coast-to-coast for more funds to finance the war against illicit drugs, Utah's Legislature considers liberalizing Utah's liquor laws.
As leaders obsess over how governments will help pay for the costs of medical treatment, Utah's Legislature is considering liberalizing Utah's liquor laws.
Someone should teach Utah's legislators that alcohol is the most abused drug.
Pretend for a minute that humankind had not discovered alcohol until Drexel distilled it in 2000. After years of testing, would the Federal Drug Administration allow it to be sold as a drink? At best, the FDA would place it under a restrictive prescription schedule, complete with a list of warnings against side effects and addiction potential.
Studies that tout alcohol's benefit on heart health illustrate that some "scientific" testing is actually designed to justify our habits. If Drexel had discovered alcohol and tried to market it as a heart medication, the FDA would have denied the proposal because of its dangerous and addictive side effects.
Ancient beers and wines had minor food value. In specific times and places, they were safer to drink than the waters. Through the ages, humans experimented with wines and spirits, not to improve their food value, but to increase their alcohol jolt.
The snobbishness surrounding wine consumption is misleading, for vintners are just as obsessive about high alcohol contents as are the distillers of whiskey.
Alcohol, with tobacco and marijuana are the big-three hypocrisies in the American war on drugs. Proponents of these substances would have us believe they are really good for us because they are (in the popular cliché) "natural."
This logic is laughable. Mankind has so hybridized the plants involved in wine and the various types of cigarettes that nothing is natural about any of the products.
For example, mankind has so thoroughly hybridized marijuana in the past four thousand years that the original plant probably does not exist anywhere on earth. People tinkered with it -- especially since the late 1970s -- to increase the psychoactive buzz, not its dubious medical properties.
Neither the war on drugs nor the medical crisis can be taken seriously when billions are squandered to treat conditions and illnesses caused by culturally accepted drug abuse. When we are really serious about decreasing medical costs and drug abuse, we will end recreational consumption of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.
First of all, I said alcohol plays and has played a significant role in health, so already you're mis-quoting me.
No I'm not; when you say "alcohol plays and has played a significant role in health" you make two claims: alcohol plays a significant role in health, and alcohol has played a significant role in health. I questioned the first claim. Get it now?
It is used today as a disinfectant and in medicines such a cough syrups and sleep aids.
Are you using "significant" as a synonym for "any"? If not, you have not yet supported your claim that alcohol plays a significant role in health.
What's the first thing you think of when you hear medical disinfectant?
That orange-y stuff they put on my arm when I give blood.
And all this leaves my other two points in post #7 completely unaddressed.
Now you are comparing different compounds of "alcohol" claiming that rubbing alcohol is equivalent to grain alcohol? Good grief.
I guess we have one of two conclusions here: Morphine and other opiate derivatives should be illegal because those substances are similar compounds as opium and heroine, or opium and heroine should be legal because of the medical history of related compounds such as morphine and codeine.
All of that can be rendered moot by a simple declaration by the DEA that there is no recognized medical use for alcohol, and that any potential benefit can be had by substituting other substances.
That's why I say I'm wasting my time explaining myself. It falls on deaf, orange-y ears.
Show us any proof that Jack Daniels whiskey or Budweiser beer have been used in the area of medicine.
When I see you pushing for medical THC (or one of 399 other chemicals) instead of medical marijuana, I'll make the alcohol distinction.
Should I be? If so, why?
(And have you abandoned your claims about the current medical significance of alcohol?)
So FreeTally argues for the medical availability of a single plant that contains 400 active chemicals, and you think that justifies your treating as identical two chemicals that do not naturally occur together? Seldom have I seen a more dishonest argument.
The author is attempting to ignore that by placing alcohol and marijuana on equal historical footings with his sentence, "Pretend for a minute that humankind had not discovered alcohol until Drexel distilled it in 2000".
Not the same.
One actually crosses the rubicon of healthfulness or abusiveness the day a cigarette is first pressed to their lips. You would think that would be important enough to want to stamp out. Why isn't addictive behavior the subject attacked in these ads?
I think kids would buy into it a helluva lot better if all these substances (legal and otherwise) were attacked concurrently.
I did---see my post #7.
Alcohol has a history of use in the US (add cooking, an area I forgot), whereas marijuana doesn't.
So what?
But they can't be attacked concurrently while some are legal and some are otherwise. I prefer legalizing it all for adults, and giving kids straight information (not Reefer Madness horror stories).
What the heck are you babbling about? Taking someone else's post and running with it? Do some research on your own before making a fool of yourself.
In the past, ethanol, with added iso-propyl alcohol, was used as rubbing alcohol. Ethanol (grain alcohol) is what you drink.
Rubbing alcohol, these days, is synthetically produced isopropyl alcohol diluted with water to 70% strength. Not fit for consumption.
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