Alcohol Causes One In 20 Deaths Worldwide, Says WHO (theguardian.com) 211
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Alcohol is responsible for more than 5% of all deaths worldwide, or around 3 million a year, new figures have revealed. The data, part of a report from the World Health Organization, shows that about 2.3 million of those deaths in 2016 were of men, and that almost 29% of all alcohol-caused deaths were down to injuries -- including traffic accidents and suicide. The report, which comes out every four years, reveals the continued impact of alcohol on public health around the world, and highlights that the young bear the brunt: 13.5% of deaths among people in their 20s are linked to booze, with alcohol responsible for 7.2% of premature deaths overall. It also stresses that harm from drinking is greater among poorer consumers than wealthier ones. While the proportion of deaths worldwide that have been linked to alcohol has fallen to 5.3% since 2012, when the figure was at 5.9%, experts say the findings make for sobering reading.
In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other words (Score:5, Funny)
the rate of death attributed to alcohol has been falling since 2012. Sounds like a better trend to me.
I'll raise a toast to that!
Alcohol doesn't drink itself (Score:3)
Not only that, alcohol doesn't drink itself. It's not responsible for ANYTHING!
Alcohol consumers, using bad judgement, are the responsible parties with respect to the deaths cited.
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I'm sure someone, somewhere slipped on a spilled beer at a frat party and fell down the stairs landing at just the wrong angle...
Re: Alcohol doesn't drink itself (Score:2)
And what, you want to claim the beer is responsible, rather than the person who spilled the beer or the person who didnâ(TM)t bother to watch his step OR use the handrail?
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Which is a perfect example of that person attending an irresponsible party.
Good News (Score:5, Funny)
95% chance you won't die from alcohol.
The glass may be half empty but the bottle is half full.
Re:Good News (Score:4, Insightful)
More-so than 95% really.
Almost a third of this 5% who do die from it are from accidents or suicide. Meaning alcohol played a part in the death, but was certainly not the underlying cause.
Alcohol abuse that lead to suicide is a mental problem compounded by the booze. The individual would've found another compound if booze wasn't available.
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You're begging the question quite a bit there.
Not all drugs significantly impact coordination and judgement. Not all drugs have a significant negative impact on mental health.
"Results: 21,967 respondents (13.4% weighted) reported lifetime psychedelic use. There were no significant associations
between lifetime use of any psychedelics, lifetime use of specific psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote), or past
year use of LSD and increased rate of any of the mental health outcomes. Rather, in several
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I certainly didn't come out and say all drugs are bad. Cmon now.
While I've never tried the above-mentioned, I have heard of the many possible positive effects of them on people suffering from several mental health conditions. They are well worth being looked into and their stigma isn't warranted in the least in my opinion.
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Only one statistic (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only one statistic (Score:5, Funny)
Alcohol may cause 1 in 20 deaths, but it probably play a part in about 1 in 20 conceptions, so overall its a zero-sum game
Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Re:Only one statistic (Score:5, Funny)
Alcohol is no solution.
It's a distillate.
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List of causes of death by rate (Score:5, Informative)
List of causes of death by rate [wikipedia.org]
I think that there are more pressing causes of death, which might increase the need for a drink.
Undid some funny moderation, because I think there are a couple of people worldwide who like to use every opportunity to ban alcohol, even though it is not really a leading cause of death worldwide.
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But is it more deaths than those caused by hippopotamus?
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Oh, right. All we've got to do is cure cancer and heart disease.
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List of causes of death by rate [wikipedia.org]
I think that there are more pressing causes of death, which might increase the need for a drink.
Above that, its lying by statistics. It isn't that alcohol is the cause of the fatality, often it's just a contributing factor. I.E. for young people dying in an alcohol related accident, the problem isn't the alcohol, the problem is the society that permits and in many cases encourages drink driving.
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I thought drunk driving was illegal? How does society at large permit and encourage it? Local peer pressure sure, but I wouldn't blame society as a whole.
Would regulated opiates be as bad as alcohol? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say for whatever reason, opium and alcohol switch places historically and instead of alcohol being the dominant legal drug, opium derivatives become legal.
Like alcohol, the dominant forms of opiates that remain legal are low-concentrate varieties, such as smoking opium or low-strength tinctures -- in the same way that beer and wine are popular, although like spirits, morphine or heroin also exist, but are consumed mostly diluted cocktail style. For the most part, opium is sold in regulated stores and always in well-known concentrations by a well-regulated industry.
Society has recognized for centuries the problems of opium use, but as its deeply ingrained in culture only the US ever tried to ban it during Prohibition which was a complete failure. Alcohol is seen as much worse, and society is presently engaged in a "alcohol crisis" fueled by over-prescription of therapeutic alcohol and black-market alcohol which is tainted.
Would we more or less be in the same place we are now, kind of turning a blind eye to the dangers of opium -- relying mostly on the culturally ingrained "rules" for to not overdose regularly?
It seems to me that most people ignore the large-scale problems with alcohol availability and despite cultural acceptance it's probably way more dangerous than we ever consider. Millions of people are alcoholics and millions more are borderline functional alcoholics and there are vast social problems associated with alcohol, like drunk driving, violence, domestic abuse, etc.
I think there have been attempts to quantify the risks associated with the various varieties of psychoactive substances and almost always alcohol and tobacco come out 1 or 2 with opiates further down the list maybe behind barbiturates, which society mostly has avoided as a long-term crisis or black market drug.
The latter is kind of interesting considering the popularity of Seconal and Quaaludes in the late 1960s and 1970s -- it's somewhat surprising that with the surge in illciit lab-made fentanyl and other "research chemicals" that there hasn't been a parallel surge in illicit lab-made Quaaludes or Seconal.
Re:Would regulated opiates be as bad as alcohol? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Would regulated opiates be as bad as alcohol? (Score:4, Insightful)
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American Drug policy is meant to target minorities (Score:2)
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Nixon definitely did weaponize drug policy as a tool for dealing with his enemies -- hippies, left-wing types and minorities.
My problem is that I don't think drug policy really changed all that much when this happened, the only real difference was that post 1960s there were just a LOT more ordinary white people doing drugs, mostly marijuana.
But before that, drug policy had historically been used to suppress minorities too -- Chinese, Blacks, Mexicans. Sure, Nixon made it worse but it wasn't like it was gre
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The risk charts I've seen rank "smoking", not nicotine, because until about 5 minutes ago smoking was the principal consumption source for nicotine consumption and most of the risks were associated with actually inhaling smoke; nicotine just made it really addictive and repetitive.
I think in an alternate universe with opiates as a culturally ingrained and accepted substance, there'd be a lot less overdoses than we see in the wild now because of regulated dosing and tribal knowledge of acceptable dosing. St
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> is substantially less addictive than morphine and cocaine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Alcohol is roughly the same level of addictive as cocaine. 15.4% of alcohol users will become dependent at some point in their lives compared to 16.7% of cocaine users.
> In summary, then, I have to disagree with you: alcohol is, objectively, a less risky psychoactive substance than the harder illegal drugs, especially opiates.
That's true by definition. Harder drugs are more dangerous. Not all illegal drugs a
Well ... (Score:2)
suicide == alcohol? (Score:2)
so they rolled in the suicide stats if there was a bottle nearby at time of death?
fishy! junk science! fake news!
Suicides? (Score:2)
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Alcohol lowers inhibitions, including those against self-harm.
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And 2 in 3 births. (Score:2)
Germany will not like the oktoberfest buzzkill! (Score:2)
Germany will not like the oktoberfest buzzkill!
A more important reason for death (Score:2)
Speak for yourself (Score:2)
Alcohol is responsible for more than 5% of all deaths worldwide, or around 3 million a year, new figures have revealed
I think I speak for everyone when I say "WHO cares?".
Don't worry, I'll see myself out
Overpopulation is a bigger problem than alcohol (Score:2, Informative)
Typo in headline causes confusion (Score:2)
This was the original submission:
Alcohol Causes One In 20 Deaths Worldwide-Says who?
The W.H.O. has an agenda.. (Score:2)
Also: causes 1/4th of the births (Score:2)
Indirectly. A lot fewer people of both sexes would be able to get laid if it wasnâ(TM)t for alcohol, and not just due to its intoxicating effects, but also due to the social mingling opportunities that alcohol has been enabling for thousands of years.
AA link (Score:2)
I Would Rather Have A Bottle In Front Of Me... (Score:2)
Than a Frontal Lobotomy!
Not for long (Score:2)
Now that pot is available legally one way or another in almost every state, this will go down fast.
But let's ignore cars (Score:3)
Cars kill more people.
Most deaths from alcohol are caused by cars.
It's like blaming alcohol for all the deaths caused by tanks. The tank fired the weapons, the amount of alcohol imbibed is only a contributing factor. Or like blaming the need to use lungs to breathe when it's the smoke that's killing you.
Re:Slashdot, are you turning into a Puritan? (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, it is the number one way to screw up your life. And if not the number one, it's in the top two. This drug is widely available, people self-medicate with it because it has social blessing, it's advertised everywhere and yes, there's even a word for abusing it that's in common parlance -- alcoholism. It's not just the deaths it's the messed second, third and fourth order consequences.
Let me give a simple example: alcohol abuse makes you a lousy parent.
Re:Slashdot, are you turning into a Puritan? (Score:4, Insightful)
The number one way to screw up your life is having sex. From STDs to pregnancies to rape allegations...
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The number one way to screw up your life is having sex. From STDs to pregnancies to rape allegations...
You missed: children.
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Actually, being a faggot would eliminate one of the potential problems.
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And yet 19 out of 20 people manage to live responsibly and not kill themselves. Did anybody question how many of those people enjoy a little alcohol in moderation without becoming fuckwits?
It's basically pointing out that some people can't control themselves, and that some people are just fucking awful parents who failed to introduce their offspring to drinking, partying and enjoying life in a controlled manner, leaving them to "break free" and binge out, to their own detriment.
Why blame the alcohol? Oh r
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If paying for it bothers you, well you're going to pay for it anyways in societal costs. More health care, more law enforcement involvement, more broken homes. If you're sole metric is taxes, then you really are missing the bigger picture.
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You sir must learn to subscribe to the proper victimhood mentality, this is 2108 after all. We can't have people thinking and taking responsibility for themselves. Your vote entitles you to be absolved from such burdensome things. Indeed, many inanimate objects are to blame for your actions. And if that doesn't quite fly, then try blaming society as a failed collective system.
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Uhh... they perfected suspended animation in 2037 ..? whoops!
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From "The Young Man in Business", Edward W. Bok (c. 1896)
"If he be wise he will entirely avoid the use of liquors. If the
question of harm done by intoxicating liquor is an open one, the
question of the actual good derived from it is not."
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To be fair, it is the number one way to screw up your life. And if not the number one, it's in the top two.
That's a statement that would need some backup, I think. People screw up their lives in a nearly infinite number of ways, of which alcohol is obviously one. They also gamble, shoot at each other, fight, become addicted to any number of things (not all of which are considered "drugs"). They might even just be a bit lazy, which you might consider a life "screwed up", if you consider wasted potential a screw-up.
But the thing is, we're all adults here. It would be nice to be treated like one, for a change. Wher
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Never mind, in other /. news Microsoft, Google and Facebook kill 9/10.
Re:Alcohol has always been used in population cont (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Alcohol has always been used in population cont (Score:5, Insightful)
It kills those in their 20s disproportionately often because those in their 20s tend to die rarely from cardiac arrest, cancer or a stroke.
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Eliminating factors that taint the result is crucial. Else bullshit like "people lived healthier lives in the past because way fewer died of cancer" becomes fashionable. Yes, fewer people died of cancer in medieval times, but mostly because other diseases that we have eliminated today got them first.
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More people would get older without alcohol. Ok. But take a look at the population pyramid of your country and ask yourself whether you'd really want that.
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Yes, fewer people died of cancer in medieval times, but mostly because other diseases that we have eliminated today got them first.
That and almost no ability to perform any diagnosis other than palpation of tumours close to the surface, or ones that were visible to the naked eye (melanomas and such). But then any cancers that werediagnosed would never be effectively treated anyway.
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Those in their 20s also tend to take more risks than their elders, and don't yet recognize when they're too drunk to be doing that, leading to stupid stunts and drunk driving.
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And as most of the world has socialized healthcare of some kind, it is an expensive form of population control. Other conspiracy theories float the rise in cancer and cheap high-saturated fat foods as methods of killing off the old who have outlived their usefulness, but when you look at the cost of cancer treatments and survived heart attacks, it doesn't look so good. Even the US has medicare for the elderly, it's not really helping anyone to kill them off in any of these ways.
It's probably just people mak
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They have no lobbying group.
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There are two possible answers to that. The first is that there are negative side effects from those two drugs that society deems unacceptable.
However, yeah, we all know that alcohol has some pretty bad side effects, and we know that the above "official" reason is probably not the real reason. The real reason is that alcohol is established in our society and the other two are not. Alcohol has been consumed for thousands of years and has always been part of mainstream western civilization. We (mainstream
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The plant itself has been familiar in the west for hundreds of years, as hemp has several other uses besides the intoxicating effects, which have also been known for a long time. An interesting anecdote from the wiki article of the history of cannabis: [wikipedia.org]:
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I'd say it's fast on track for becoming a mainstream alternative.
Keep in mind also that it's been more common than most people think throughout the last decades. It's true that alcohol has a way longer history in the West, but the statistics are also heavily slanted by the prohibition approach to cannabis which understandably makes people less likely to admit to using it, thereby creating an image of it as more marginalized than it actually is.
I would agree with that. I think the two things are going hand in hand. The mainstream usage of it, and the push for legalization. It certainly isn't the taboo substance it once was. If you see films from the 60's-80's people smoking pot were usually losers or degenerates. Nowadays films will show everyday people, respectable people using it. Culturally, it is being portrayed more positively. I expect it to be legal almost anywhere in the Western world within my lifetime.
I doubt the same will be true
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> Marijuana ... but it has never been part of mainstream society
Hmm, someone should of told the US Dept. of Agriculture that [youtube.com] in 1942.
Video is: Hemp for Victory.
Rolling Stone has a great article: How America Lost the War on Drugs [rollingstone.com] that briefly touches the history.
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The last supper would have consisted of taco bell and cheetos.
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You'll notice that in cases where the person dying is not the person drinking, it often is illegal.
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You'll notice that in cases where the person dying is not the person drinking, it often is illegal.
Good thing making it illegal has been so effective!
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Well the number of DUI deaths are way down since enforcement picked up along with a change in overall attitude towards drinking and driving.
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Well the number of DUI deaths are way down since enforcement picked up along with a change in overall attitude towards drinking and driving.
The change in attitude toward guns is what I would like to see happen. Though if I'm being completely honest, I have no clue how to make a change in attitude over guns happen. While I hate the blame the tool mentality, I really don't have a better answer to the problem.
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There's a movement to totally ban handguns here, polls show lots of public support, but i don't see the point as they're so highly regulated already. The problem is that there are enough out there already and it isn't that hard to go south, buy one and smuggle it back.
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You'll notice that in cases where the person dying is not the person drinking, it often is illegal.
Methinks something got lost in translation. The 5% of deaths caused by alcohol include people who were not drinking, but killed as the result of someone else drinking. An easy example would be people when someone drunk crashes into them. Because of this potential harm to others we are justified in regulating alcohol (eg. set minimum drinking age, maximum BAC for driving). Regulate doesn't mean outright ban, but please don't put myself, my family, or my friends at risk due to your decisions.
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Re:Oh, no! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Regulation (Score:2)
What? Alcohol causes more deaths than firearms?!
Duh. People have greater access to alcohol so this should surprise no one. That said it depends on exactly when you measure it. During a war firearms clearly are the bigger danger. Also I'm not especially worried about someone pointing a beer at me even if they are angry.
Well, there's one way to fix that - ban alcohol! Make it illegal, and alcohol-related deaths should pretty much stop happening.
Comparing regulation of a mild recreational drug to regulation of a purpose built weapon is a fairly ridiculous comparison. That said there is plenty of evidence that prohibition did have positive effects regarding mortality [nih.gov] despite ar
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I disagree.
Do to alcohol what was done to tobacco.
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The only countries that have less problems with guns than the US are western countries that are less diverse than the US
You think Canada is less diverse than the US? I'm Canadian, and my office resembles the United Nations hosting a gay pride parade.
We do have gun control, though.
It's frustrating (bordering on bizarre) how so many Americans grasp at any straw to explain gun violence, while refusing to concede the one commonality: The absence of gun control.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac... [pewresearch.org]
T
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People would switch to cannabis. Madness! [youtube.com]
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Thank you for explaining the joke.
*golfclap*
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For more drunk women! Nerds wanna score, too!
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You only noticed that now? Never heard of that bullshit called the "12 step program [wikipedia.org]?
The whole thing starts with "admitting" that you're not responsible for drinking.
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If this program helps you get your life back on track, you need help. Real help.
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It doesn't help, that's the problem. It replaces one dependency with another, how in the world is this help?
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I don't think admitting that you don't have the willpower to combat it alone (or that you have "genetic" alcoholism) is the same thing as claiming "you're not responsible". They're not blaming the alcohol itself for existing. It all does sound rather defeatist, granted, but at least it encourages people to get help, commiserate, and support each other, which is probably a more realistic fix for many people than just buckling down and beating it on their own.
The worst is the guy that tells himself and othe
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What I learned today from Slashdot: human beings have no free will, but a molecule can be deemed "responsible".
One could argue we DON'T have free will. We're chemical machines our thoughts are caused by chemistry in our brains based on how our brains are set up (a mix of genetic pre-programing, and our exposures in life) - we will always make the same decision in identical circumstances. We can't really change our programming. We will do what we're programmed to do.
Now, that's not a really helpful outlook- and certainly such a fatalistic view could leave people doing bad things and just saying "meh, it's what I w
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True and what percentage of alcohol users is it, out of all the people who drink in moderation and don't abuse it?
It's hardly a complete study,
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Yeah, they don't mean official cause of death, they mean cases where removing alcohol from the equation would have prevented death.
In your DUI example, if the driver wasn't drunk, then he'd have a low probability of crashing so there's a high probability it's a 'cause' by this definition. If instead we remove the car from the equation, then it'd just be drunken fool sat on the ground, steering an imaginary wheel, making car noises, so the car is a 'cause' as well by this definition. His limbs are also