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.
Alcohol as an ingredient in sleep aids? Kindly cite one.
In the past, ethanol, with added iso-propyl alcohol, was used as rubbing alcohol.
Reading comprehension problems again, I see.
My response is that the United States has a history with alcohol that we don't have with marijuana. In my post #4, I pointed out that alcohol plays and has played a significant role in health, religious ceremonies, social customs, and societal acceptance (and, yes, cooking). Marijuana has not.
And that history is one reason why the two are not treated the same.
No, you are trying to equate alcohol in a form that can be ingested and intoxicate a person with alcohol in the form that if ingested, would kill the person. The author is not ignoring anything; your specious argument is irrelevant.
"History" is not a justification for inprisoning certain people for ingesting a certain substance, and not inprisoning others for ingesting another substance..
Yeh, and has nothing to do with the fact that pot smokers are generally passive, peaceful, non-violent people and rabid alcohol addicts are the complete opposite and have a huge, multi-billion dollar industry behind them. Yep, nothing to do with that.......
Give this guy credit for consistency---which is more than most Drug Warriors can claim. His basic point is irrefutable: alcohol is a deadly, addictive mind-altering drug that fits the criteria by which the War On Some Drugs has been defended.His point is definitely religious, he's starting from the official view of the LDS Church. Since passing laws for avowedly religious reasons is verboten even in Utah, he has to come up with "secular" reasons to support his position. Of course, he's picking and choosing based on his preconceived conclusion. In science that is called "cooking the data".
Of course, this makes him similar to most of the other Drug Warriors out there.
-Eric
Well then, my post #4 was a waste of your time, wasn't it?
Nyquill is not a sleeping aid.I beg to differ. >:)
-Eric
I tried no such thing. Now answer my question about historical use of alcohol: So what? How does that rationalize keeping the less dangerous drug illegal and the more dangerous drug legal?
We tried this; it was called Prohibition .... I'm to the point where I think the WOD is a collosal failure. Legalize it all ... 20 years will reduce the problem via Darwinian social selection.
Sure it is. NyQuil® contains 10% alcohol and is used at night to help with sleep. DayQuil® does not contain alcohol and is used during the day.
RP's implications were that alcohol, in and of itself, is medically used as a sleeping aid. Nothing could be further from the truth. As proof, note what the directions on any medical sleeping aid say concerning alcohol.
And as I already stated, please note what the directions on any medicne that's primary purpose is a sleeping aid says about alcohol. Hint, they doen't say "add alcohol for increased results" or "substitute alcohol for similar results".
Truer words were never spoken. The WOD has indeed failed in all the ways Prohibition failed.
Please elaborate about the significant role alcohol plays in health.
I am aware of the significant role it plays in the world of health care, (through the mechanism of emergency room visits following auto accidents, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.) but I am completely ignorant of its significant contribution of healthy living.
Please enlighten us.
I don't buy into your thinking of, "Less dangerous, legal, more dangerous, illegal". Might as well discontinue and make illegal future shuttle flights -- there's a 1 in 60 chance of dying.
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