Midton

Looks like they are going to try and make alcohol as socially unacceptable as smoking. Good intentions but I doubt it will work. Education is crucial though.

WHO launches worldwide war on booze - health - 14 October 2009 - New Scientist

steve11694

Raising the price????? May prevent non-alcoholics from drinking more or getting drunk, but doubt it will impact an alcoholic much.

CarolD

I certainly do hope this will be beneficial for not only our
generation but for those coming behind us....

Thanks for sharing the info

EvilBunny

I hate it when people who want to legislate good behavior - and "good" always means their idea of good.

Educating people and then letting them make their own decisions is what works. It was education, not additional taxes, that made fewer people smoke. Alcohol lands more teenagers in the emergency room and morgue than any other drug by far, but the US government spends the taxpayer's PSA money exclusively on preventing marijuana use. It's just a ridiculous abuse of resources.

socialismislost

Prohibition drove alcoholism underground. Did nothing to solve alcoholism or educate anyone. Punishing the disease will never cure it, hence the huge uproar and lifting of prohibition. Taxing/punishing/humiliating does nothing but drive alcoholism deeper, and does not address the cause. I truly find suspect people who applaud something like this.

NewBeginning010

Very interesting, thanks for the link

I know that it helped me to quit smoking when the cost was raised to the roof.

Drinking will be a part of insurance policies in the near future just like your smoker/non smoker status.

Fine with me ;-)

P.S. I am not saying make it illegal... tax the heck out of it so that it can help the people that are struggling with it & the friends & families that are affected.

EvilBunny

If you "tax the heck out of it" and make it prohibitively expensive people will eventually start making bathtub gin again or just switch to another (probably more dangerous) drug. Smokers and heavy drinkers are the poorest and least healthy members of society and you want to raise their taxes?:wtf2

Dee74

I find it interesting people have seized on one point in this article.

Concerted positive action against the health crisis that alcohol causes is long overdue...I'm glad WHO is engaged in meaningful discussion and canvassing world wide strategies

D

EvilBunny

The problem is that most of the strategies they enumerated will have the unintended consequence of harming the very people they are trying to save.

NewBeginning010

Well.. I was responding to some of the comments already made about the article ;-) But yes that too Dee \

As they mention its not just about the effects on alcoholics but the effects that alcohol has on everyone/everything else.

The google earth map is very interesting, its surprising too see how bad alcoholism is in some of the small low economic countries.

NB

CarolD

Regardless of our understanding of what WHO is
planning .......it's going to be interesting to see the
effects in say.....30 years.

Let's not jump to the conclusion that it's a futile idea.
Gee....are we now peering into crystal balls?


I see positive healing ...useful information .... peer support
and hope here each day.
We can and do recover ....

NewBeginning010

Maybe it will help them to quit & therefore have more money and be healthier

EvilBunny

That's always the goal with this kind of thing, but it's not what happens. Poor smokers have never been phased by higher prices - they just take the tax hit. Smoking is socially unacceptable to "mainstream" people, but if you visit your local homeless shelter you will find that most of the occupants smoke.

Addiction is characterized by using despite negative consequences. Is it realistic to think that a raging alcoholic will quit to save money, or more likely that he or she will just cut the food budget? You can't punish people into changing.

socialismislost

The road to H* is always paved with good intentions. Sin taxes have always been around, but making it prohibitively expensive will never stop alcoholics. Its a step back into social engineering and control, and back on the road to prohibition. These policies were made and considered back in the 1920's with disasterous effects. Its drove alcoholism underground. It helped to foment and establish organized crime. And it moved alcoholics to other hard drugs who might not have tried if it werent illegal.

Criminalizing behavior seems to be the only solution people can come up with and thats sad and unfortunate. I doubt these types of attitudes or thinking will change much though. Its why our jails and prisons are filled with addicts/alcoholics. Its also why the mentally ill wind up there as well. The US has more people in prison than any other country on the planet, and its exactly this type of thinking that fill them up more.

People ought to google prohibition and the period leading up to it with the exact prohibitive taxes that were placed on booze before it was made illegal. Its like the old saying, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Overman

Nice, a political thread for a change.

TheMaster

Yes. If they have to be responsible for their own healthcare they MAY think twice about going down that path. Is it better to have the rest of the taxpayers foot the bill for their poor choices?

If you are poor, you should be paying your bills & buying food with what little you have, not blowing it on booze & cigs, while Medicaid takes care of your poor health.

I'm not in the best of health, either, but I work & pay for my insurance.

EvilBunny

That's a false dichotomy. Just because we don't punish people financially for drinking doesn't mean we then have to foot the bill for their illnesses. There are also plenty of healthy people who buy nicotine products and alcohol. What is the point of punishing them?

TheMaster

Because there is still the risk. How healthy will those people be in 20 years?

meo348241

I always kind of thought along these lines myself but this article seems to disprove that notion.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi...t/21/2/120.pdf

EvilBunny

So you advocate raising taxes on people who may have serious health problems in 20 years and who may not be able to pay for their health care at that time?

It's ridiculous to preemptively punish people for things they might do or problems they might cause.