Booze still kills '20 people a week' in Scotland

isthisincognito

isthisincognito

Bluelighter
Joined
May 2, 2010
Messages
290
Location
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Excerpt:

NHS Health Scotland called for further action to ensure that reductions in alcohol deaths continue. There were more than 1,000 recorded in 2012.

The organisation has published its third annual report on Scotland's alcohol strategy.

The Scottish government said the harm caused by alcohol was still too high.

Alcohol-related deaths and hospital discharge rates in Scotland have declined in recent years, but death rates are still twice what they were in the 1980s and higher than in England and Wales.

Alcohol sales also remained 19% higher than in England and Wales, driven by the purchase of more off-sales spirits, particularly vodka.

But new analysis also cited the economic downturn as a factor in alcohol affordability and the current decline in death rates and illness.

Neil Craig, NHS Health Scotland
Despite improvements, NHS Health Scotland said women aged 25-44 years were not experiencing the same improvements in hospital discharge rates, particularly for alcoholic liver disease.
Click to expand...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25283838
 
How many of these are people that drank themselves to death, and how many are poly-substance OD? I wish they'd specify.

I've drunk myself unconscious many times. Have I been close to death every one of these times?

I guess I'm asking if alcohol has a lethality similar to heroin's.
 
If its 20 a week then it includes death due to long-term illness. I heard David Nutt quote 20 a month for "acute alcohol intoxication", which means an actual overdose, for the whole UK. For the whole UK the total alcohol deaths are about 20 a day (UK gov figures for 2011).

The BBC are quite well behaved here, for a change. Usually articles like this like to say "drugs and alcohol" even though the contribution of all the other drugs combined is minuscule in comparison.
 
Does it includes motor vehicle accident deaths where alcohol was involved? That is far more prevalent than alcohol overdoses.
 
Sometimes you also drunkenly fall out of a hot air balloon and into foliage, where a leopard eats you.
 
The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ICSD - UK based) created a scale that ranges from 0 (no harm) to 100 (greatest possible harm). It is weighted so that a drug that scores 50 is half as harmful as a drug that scores 100.

The two highest scoring drugs are and the two lowest scoring are.. *drumroll*

Alcohol - 72
Heroin - 55
Buprenorphine - 6
Mushrooms - 5

The scoring criteria is based on these points:
  1. Drug specific mortality
  2. Drug related mortality
  3. Drug specific damage (Such as direct disease, seizure, stroke etc.)
  4. Drug related damage (Indirect disease, such as HIV, Talcosis etc.)
  5. Dependence
  6. Drug specific mental Impairment
  7. Drug related mental Impairment
  8. Loss of tangible goods
  9. Loss of relationships
  10. Injury (Road traffic collisions, fetal hard, domestic violence etc.)
  11. Crime
  12. Environmental Damage (Toxic waste, Biohazard waste etc.)
  13. Family Adversity
  14. International Damage
  15. Economic Cost
  16. Community decline

You can see the published paper here, which gives a breakdown and explanation of the scoring criteria http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_OLD/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf

Obviously this is only a Generalisation based on data available, the drugs looked at, no two cases would be the same, nor does it look at things like legal highs, synthetic cannabinoids etc.

If you look at the data graphs included in the link, you can see according to their data, heroin has a higher acute mortality than alcohol, as well as a higher long term mortality rate, it is also more harmful to the user than to others in comparison to alcohol.
 
Last edited:
isthisincognito said:
The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ICSD - UK based) created a scale that ranges from 0 (no harm) to 100 (greatest possible harm). It is weighted so that a drug that scores 50 is half as harmful as a drug that scores 100.

The two highest scoring drugs are and the two lowest scoring are.. *drumroll*

Alcohol - 72
Heroin - 55
Buprenorphine - 6
Mushrooms +20
Click to expand...

fixed that for you;)
 
It angers me that other people's problems with alcohol are used as justification for earlier closing times, or higher prices or bans on over serving in bars. I only drink once in a while and do it responsibly (ie no driving or fighting outside bar at closing time or peeing in the streets). Why should my access to booze be in any way reduced because other people don't drink responsibly?
 
my3rdeye said:
It angers me that other people's problems with alcohol are used as justification for earlier closing times, or higher prices or bans on over serving in bars. I only drink once in a while and do it responsibly (ie no driving or fighting outside bar at closing time or peeing in the streets). Why should my access to booze be in any way reduced because other people don't drink responsibly?
Click to expand...

It angers me that other people's problems with heroin (insert any other illicit drug here) are used as justification for its illegal status.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but that was one of my first thoughts when reading your post.
 
my3rdeye said:
It angers me that other people's problems with alcohol are used as justification for earlier closing times, or higher prices or bans on over serving in bars. I only drink once in a while and do it responsibly (ie no driving or fighting outside bar at closing time or peeing in the streets). Why should my access to booze be in any way reduced because other people don't drink responsibly?
Click to expand...

I have no problem with alcohol being legal and accessible. Its just the way it is over-promoted by taking up almost half my local mini-Tesco, and even fuel station, makes me think that its maybe got a little out of control. As far as I am concerned having to go to a pub or off-license (that only sells alcohol), like it used to be years ago in the UK, is perfectly accessible enough.

Accessible is good, but seeking to take advantage of "impulse buying" by crowding out just about every other product, including food, I think is OTT.
 
my3rdeye said:
It angers me that other people's problems with alcohol are used as justification for earlier closing times, or higher prices or bans on over serving in bars. I only drink once in a while and do it responsibly (ie no driving or fighting outside bar at closing time or peeing in the streets). Why should my access to booze be in any way reduced because other people don't drink responsibly?
Click to expand...

This is something humanity will have to get over before we take the next big step forward. The old strategy of punishing everyone for the irresponsible actions of the few. It stems from ignorance and laziness pure and simple.

Also, wtf do they mean by mushrooms? People die here every year by eating deathcaps thinking they are normal white mushrooms. It is pretty terrible because they usually end up feeding them to other people since eating is a communal thing.

Moreover, if the amount of diacetylmorphine (heroin) per gram of carrier substance were standardized there would be far fewer deaths. Alcohol is much more toxic in terms of its reactions with cellular components.
 
I know lots of ppl who have commited petty crime all the way to unarmed robbery (357 snubby but it wasnt loaded) all to get dope. Now i do know plenty of ppl who have assaulted others, blacked out unconscious from booze, beat their wives (s/o) done stupid ass shit like wrecking a brand new audi a6, alchol is so insidious yet it is legal and culturaly embraced. The whole 20 ppl a week whos to say if thats car crashes, poly substance ods or what. Either way, alchohol is a pretty terrible drug. And its sad since its so culturally engrained that going out on the weekend and getting piss drunk is ok. And being hungover is kinda like ohh haha drank a little too much eh? Someone in heroin wd gets you junkie this is all your fault. Booze can be just as hard of a drug as any other. Just ask the guys that used to come into the liquor store i used to manage with socks filled with pennies and "their moms credit cards" waiting inline before we opened just to buy a pint or 2 of rot gut vodka that was probably shipped here in oil drums disguised as windshield washer fluid.
 
One thing i enjoy reading is debated on if booze was just invented in the past hundred years would be it classes with lsd marijuana and ecstasy. No real medical use, high abusable. Yeah wine in moderation can be ok for you but i dont know too many ppl that are drinking little glasses of wine at dinner. Lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top