Here
It
Comes.
Liver disease is the new lung cancer. You are costing the NHS money! It's actually having to do what you're paying it for and it's not happy. It doesn't matter if you drink no more than a glass of sherry a month, you're a drinker in the same way that someone who has one cigar a year is a smoker. Your turn.
Oh - and guess who's next?
Still think you're not on the list? Wake up call - everyone is on the list. The list the smokophobes started now has their names on it too. So, you guys want some help from the smokers? You want us to help you fight the new bans coming your way?
No. Because even if we did, we'd still be out in the cold. Remove the smoking ban entirely, stop all funding for ASH, get the BMA to do their real jobs rather than acting as if they own us all, and then we'll talk. Otherwise, enjoy your own ban.
13 comments:
At first I also chortled at the mention of alcohol rationing a couple of years ago
Banned July 2009, para 3
but now I see it happening within my lifetime.
I'd better up my smoking and drinking to make sure that it does not.
What do you suppose will constitute second hand drinking, breathing alcohol fumes on someone in the (smokefree) kebab shop?
Obviously we won't be allowed to take a taxi home since that will infect the driver, won't they be thrilled!
They will be able to bring back the pictures they showed us at school, the ones of the sliced up brains with big alcohol holes in them, not that it worked then.
Well . . . it just means I'll get more traffic on my website
www.alcoholhealthalliance.org
The BBC's quick of the mark. This morning it was ranting on about the increase in the number of alcohol related hospital admissions.
It could get worse than that, LI
Nevermind liver disease,this is much closer to the tobacco template.
"No safe level"
"There is increasing evidence that links alcohol consumption to cancer. The WHO International Agency of Research on Cancer has stated, based on evidence, that alcohol is carcinogenic in both animals and humans."
"Based on the evidence, “there is no level of alcohol consumption for which cancer risk is null.”
Medical News Today - 2011
'The cause is above all the transformation of ethanol in alcohol to acetaldehyde, which damages DNA in healthy cells.'
Daily Mail - 2009
Risk of harm to others -
“Cooks are familiar with the idea that alcohol evaporates from a pot during heating. It simply disappears into thin air.”
“Inhalation of alcohol fumes has been tried in the laboratory. Researchers managed to raise blood alcohol levels to 10mg per 100ml in tests on volunteers carried out in Germany in the Fifties and in Britain in 1975."
Independant - 1993
I give you Passive Drinking, but only in an enclosed public space.
Much better than the one the RCP cooked up, don't you think?
Public 'must be protected from passive drinking' - 2009
"Sir Liam, who first called for a smoking ban in his annual report in 2002, said alcohol affects families, the health service and the economy. He said: "The consequences of drinking go far beyond the individual drinker's health and well-being. Alcohol can cause harm to the unborn foetus, acts of drunken violence, vandalism, sexual assault and child abuse."
London Evening Standard.
Rose
You could be forgiven for thinking that with a swelling population the Gov would be pushing people into unhealthy lifestyles to knock us off early (think of all the saved pension payments!).
As I see it the simple reason why this is not the case is that they need us to work longer. You can't do that if you are long-term sick due to health problems.
The last thing they want is an aging population that is incapable of work and are a drain on the coffers. Of course you could argue that all the taxes you pay in your lifetime should cover the costs but that would be to credit Gov with some foresight and planning capability (ha). Bottom line is things like drink, ciggies and diabetes just don't do the job quick enough. The aim is not just to keep you alive - it is to keep you productive. Quality of life doesn't even come into it.
In order for the bans to stop (or even reverse them) we first need to address the real reasons why they are being put into place. Talk of rights, freedoms, liberal ideals and even personal defiance are all good but unlikely to change a thing on their own.
Scrapping the NHS and expecting everyone to look after their own health instead would be a good start. Compulsory private medical/critical illness insurance would certainly remove much burden from the State and so should remove much of the impetus behind the health-based bans from the State.
In the short-term the choice to opt out of the whole NHS/welfare/state pension fiasco on the promise to be left alone would suit many. As ever though, the devil would be in the detail of such a scheme.
Most liver disease in the UK is caused by hepatitis C virus followed by HBV. Only a small percentage is due to drinking alcohol excessively for many years.
It's only a matter of time before they say too much internet gives you brain damage or something.
@Michael Fowke. You are not paying attention; just yesterday "they" mysteriously found that younglings who do Facebook and Twitter are 'X' times more likely to succumb to Anti social Behaviour, Drug Abuse, Prostitution, common criminality and stabbing passers by than their sad loner peers who just watch telly.
Banned,
Oh, that’s easy. Just as at the moment, smoking is linked to pretty much every physical ailment known to man; it’ll soon – with the help of a complicit, hysterical media and a gullible public who believe them – be pretty much accepted that virtually all of the social ills of society – crime, domestic violence, family breakups, child abuse, vehicle accidents etc – are drink-related. The “innocent bystanders” who are so vital to the promotion of this view into the public’s psyche will, of course, be the victims of those crimes, that violence or those car accidents.
Simples!
Chalcedon - I have been drinking for many years and far in excess of what anyone other than a Viking would term 'resonable'.
My liver works just fine.
Rose - oh, it's going to get a lot worse before the drones wake up. As for the vapour inhalation, it'll take far more than coq au vin to reach those levels. Even taking deep breaths in a distillery you'd be hard presed to get that much.
But as with passive smoking, reality looks the other way...
Michael Fowke - it's salt's turn to drive you mad. Facebook just turns you into a druggie.
I still can’t believe the number of non-smoking drinkers who (a) simply don’t see the connection, despite the eerie similarities, (b) can see the similarities but, but by deliberately focussing only on the detail (“you can’t passively ‘drink’ alcohol, whereas you can passively inhale tobacco smoke”) can’t see how the template will be meaningfully applied to them, or (c) can see how it might be applied, but can’t see that in order to mount any meaningful resistance to the anti-booze lobby they have to swallow their pride and admit that they were wrong about the smoking ban - or face their protests being brushed aside as NIMBY-ism because: “you’re only saying that because it’s now affecting something you do – not because it’s wrong.”
Hard though it may be for many non-smoking drinkers to accept, their only hope is to turn the zealots back to face a battle that they thought was all over, done and dusted, thus detracting their attention away from this new, potentially lucrative, hunting-ground. Unless they now state very strongly that the principles behind the smoking ban were categorically unfair and wrong from the outset, then, no matter how much noise they make, in essence they’ll still be, effectively, permitting the application of the same principles towards their own chosen activity.
"Health experts blame passive overeating for global pandemic, warning in the Lancet that governments must tackle obesity now"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/26/half-uk-obese-by-2030
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