UK - The alcohol debate: Forget young binge drinkers... middle-aged and middle...

[edgarshade]

The alcohol debate: Forget young binge drinkers... middle-aged and middle class are UK's main ‘legal high’ abusers

Mancunian Matters
Posted Monday, April 2, 2012 - 08:27
By Mihaela Ivantcheva

MM discusses the UK's most used, and abused, 'legal high' in running with the Government's minimum pricing and alcohol-related hospital admissions in Manchester the highest in England. “The first thing to say about alcohol is this: Alcohol is a very strong drug. Alcohol has only one use – it’s a recreational drug,” says the educational Big Blue Book of Booze published by Manchester drug and alcohol charity Lifeline. “Every year in the United Kingdom somewhere around 9,000 to 40,000 people die as a result of drinking alcohol (depending on how the figures are estimated), while about 2,000 die as a result of all illegal drugs put together,” it says.

Part of the drugs debate has always been linked to our ‘legal high’ – alcohol. For many, alcohol is more harmful than some class B drugs, namely cannabis. On the other hand, opponents of drugs legalisation and decriminalisation argue that alcohol is an example of a failed policy of legalisation.

“Alcohol is not legalised. There are a lot of rules about drunkenness and manufacture. What we have is a regulated market. Regulated market does not get rid of all the problems. It solves some of them.

More...
http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/conte...kers-middle-aged-and-middle-class-are-uks-mai

 

[Renz Envy]

"Alcohol has one use- it's a recreational drug"

That has ZERO truth. Ethanol can be used as an anesthetic in surgeries. (source http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12354281)

Alcohol overdoses happen, but it has a steep doseage curve in which the person will pass out long before respiratory depression reaches a high enough level to cause brain damage or death. Not to mention it's a high volume drug as well as a diuretic so people will throw up due to alcohol poisoning/dehydration long before reaching a dangerous point.

The fun part is that alcohol cures anxiety disorder. So in order to meet a sexual reproduction partner, individuals feel the need to clear their anxiety through alcohol. Their genetics pass on and soon those children need alcohol to meet and reproduce. Suddenly we have a whole generation of people needing to get drunk in order to multiply.

 

[23536]

The fun part is that alcohol cures anxiety disorder. So in order to meet a sexual reproduction partner, individuals feel the need to clear their anxiety through alcohol. Their genetics pass on and soon those children need alcohol to meet and reproduce. Suddenly we have a whole generation of people needing to get drunk in order to multiply.

That's a theory. Another one is that alcohol is an aphrodesiac, so it does not necessarily propagate anxious offspring. The gene that definitely is propagated is the one that favors alcohol consumption.

 

[qwe]

That has ZERO truth. Ethanol can be used as an anesthetic in surgeries.

it has some truth. it *can* be used as such, *if* all other options are unavailable. like, if you're in somalia or something.

The fun part is that alcohol cures anxiety disorder.

its acute effects, if you haven't built up a habit, can include reducing anxiety. its long term effects worsen anxiety in rather dramatic ways, which is partly why it's so correlated with violence i think.

 

[Biovail]

"Alcohol has one use- it's a recreational drug"

That has ZERO truth. Ethanol can be used as an anesthetic in surgeries. (source http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12354281)

Not talking about doctors here buddy. What percentage of non-doctors purchase [marshmallow flavored] alcohol with the intent of using it as an anesthetic?

Alcohol overdoses happen, but it has a steep doseage curve in which the person will pass out long before respiratory depression reaches a high enough level to cause brain damage or death. Not to mention it's a high volume drug as well as a diuretic so people will throw up due to alcohol poisoning/dehydration long before reaching a dangerous point.

Haven't been to many college parties then, eh?

The fun part is that alcohol cures anxiety disorder. So in order to meet a sexual reproduction partner, individuals feel the need to clear their anxiety through alcohol. Their genetics pass on and soon those children need alcohol to meet and reproduce. Suddenly we have a whole generation of people needing to get drunk in order to multiply.

I have a feeling not many people get drunk to have kids. Maybe for having sex. But most people having drunk sex with people they don't know well don't have kids with those people.

 

[severely etarded]

its acute effects, if you haven't built up a habit, can include reducing anxiety. its long term effects worsen anxiety in rather dramatic ways

I drank like 12 bud light platinums last night and had a terrible hangover. I felt so fucking nervous like I could seize up. Rapid heartbeat,twitching/muscle spasms, jittery eyes. Nervous fucking wreck. I noticed BL platinum (6%ABV) always gives me this feeling to some extent

 

[zekethemusicman]

All Budweiser products do. It's because they use rice in their production process. Some how that causes some people to experience a worse hangover.