399

WHO calls for cigarette-style cancer warnings on alcohol packaging (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

121 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Laser@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

You need to read this in the context of the post I replied to. I don't doubt what you're saying. But there was an implication that for some people, alcohol was the "healthier alternative" to smoking that they're now not using but instead smoke (which is supposed to be even less healthy, personally I can't rank their impact on health on a good foundation but this is what was implied).

I know people self-medicate and that others use recreationally. But I'm sure alcohol and tobacco industry don't give a fuck about the legality of the other. If anything, there's probably a synergy.

[-] iriyan@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

I am not a chemist but one high up in the chem-health research chain was telling me the basic ingredient on most popular "energy" drinks is a slightly modified chain of usual methamphetamines that is not banned by FDA or Euro-equivalent agencies, and in it reacts with alcohol to produce the effects now known to kids all around the world.

There is no dirtier pusher than Big-Pharma and Big-Tobacco... The crap is so evil it resembles 30-40s German "industries" like the Bayer-nazis now part of Monsanto.

[-] Laser@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

That sounds "far-fetched" to put it mildly.

[-] iriyan@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

So you must be a biochemist, in which case you would have no problem explaining to us lesser mortals how different the formulas are and how unrelated they are.
You would also by the topic know exactly in which journals to search and find whether this is far-fetched or not, and you have access to them when the rest of us have to pay. If you are not even close to that field to tell how can you be so sure to put it mildly?

Do you know how many scientific findings are right there, published, but millions are paid so media do not make "common sense" out of them?

What is wrong and so special about kids in the US that such a high percentage require ritalin? Why not the kids of the rest of the world? What are the side-effects of long term ritalin addiction?

At least tobacco takes decades to kill you but will keep your mind sharp if you need it.

[-] Laser@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

There are just so many holes in that theory that I don't believe it, biochemist or not.

First and unrelated to any biochemical processes being that you claim that "it reacts with alcohol to produce the effects now known to kids all around the world". But kids for sure don't mix these with alcohol, the discussion here was always about marketing the drinks to kids while they have caffeine and high sugar. Not that they mix it with alcohol.

Second, at least for other previously legal substances that evaded existing laws that I read into, molecules were attached to existing substances (e.g. 1p-LSD) which in the body lost the attached molecule. However, the companies producing these had to handle LSD, and for that had a license. If this approach was used here, the energy drink companies would need to have licenses to handle methamphetamine and its predecessors.

Third, most chemical reactions are a bit more complicated than "just add ethanol".

Lastly, it was you who made an unsubstantiated claim and, citing Hitchen's razor, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".

At least tobacco takes decades to kill you but will keep your mind sharp if you need it.

Are you implying tobacco is less bad for your brain than amphetamines?

After his mother's death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet but complained that it impacted his performance: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his use of Ritalin and Benzedrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality

Not that I'm recommending this.