In the suburbs of Merrit
There are many people who feel pretty good about themselves because their drug of choice is alcohol. According to a recent study by the Lancet, a British medical journal, alcohol is actually the most harmful drug you can use. They measured harm in terms of detrimental effects on the body and on society. Cocaine, heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth are not nearly as harmful, says the study. I question the logic.
I posted a piece about our little town being the murder capitol of Canada. This is almost completely due to the fact that people are drunk. Not.
The underlying reason for the property crimes as well as the murders in our fair city is the drugs, excluding alcohol. So the social and physical harm is off the scale just in my own locale. I would never deny that alcohol is devastating to one's health and society as a whole, but in moderation, and used responsibly, it need not be a problem, and can actually be somewhat beneficial. But, even light use of hard drugs creates great harm to the body and to society because of the criminal aspect of buying and selling it and getting the large amounts of money needed to feed a very expensive habit.
Ideally, nobody should use any drugs. Everyone would be healthy and costs to the medical system and society as a whole would reduce dramatically.
I spoke with a RN, today, who has worked in the ER for twenty years and she said that in her experience, she is convinced that if nobody smoked or drank alcohol to excess, they could shut down half of the medical system. And there is the drug that is not mentioned in the study, nicotine.
Making any drug illegal does not work. Education does.
2 comments:
Not all the negative effects of alcohol are measurable from our perspective. We are sheltered and do not see the huge effect alcohol has on families, role modeling to children, subtle health effects, also to the unborn. Weekend bingeing is rampant, and results in lack of motivation and poor a work ethic. Alcohol abuse among youth and young adults is an increaisng problem, more so than drug use. Broken family relationships because of alcohol abuse are on the increase and are not measurable. The research was not detailed for the average joe, but these subtle effects were part of it. More people drink, than smoke these days. It's a nice clean habit with, in many cases,has subtle effects.
Live in Duncan for a while and you'll know about the effects of alcohol on society. And we're not alone. For many, it's a "closet habit". Even among the Mennonites, it has been for decades.
I worked with a lovely lady at the credit union who was from Duncan. She told me it was called 'Drunken Ducan' for a very good reason.
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