399
submitted 1 week ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
(page 3) 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] sunglocto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 week ago

We should be actively warning about and discouraging the consumption of demerit goods. Alcohol, cigarettes, vapes, SSBs, ultra processed food all completely destroy the health of communities all around the world. Not just in the States, but also in both developed and developing countries. We've seen study after study after study that these do nothing but make us addicted to slop that shortens our lifespan and makes us unhappy.

But the organization that is offering this advice cannot even act in the 3rd largest country in the world by population because of """misinformation""" from covid.

WHO basically fully prevented the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, and it did not affect my parents. If WHO didn't act, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. To think that people genuinely think that leaving it is good goes against every line of thinking I have used in my entire life.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 19 points 1 week ago

Can we do all petroleum products too?

this product is causing mass extinction of an estimated X thousand species

[-] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

Yes please. It will kill a lot more people than cigarettes or alcohol.

load more comments (11 replies)
[-] iz_ok@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago

The alcohol lobby is pretty strong in the US. Good thing we dropped out of WHO. Now we can poison ourselves in peace.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 9 points 1 week ago

Please no. Some of the bottles are so good looking. The cigarette warning are disgusting.

[-] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

That's the whole point. That's a good thing.

[-] gerbler@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

No thanks. I don't want the back wall of my bar to look like a snuff film. I'm all for making it clear to consumers that alcohol is a major carcinogen but maybe start with alcohol advertising and education?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] dmention7@lemm.ee 13 points 1 week ago

I think a good compromise would be a simple overwrap or removable label that can be removed after purchase.

[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 10 points 1 week ago

That’s a great idea. Give me a nasty label I can remove. Makes its point but I can still have my pretty bar. I agree it should be made clear but those who can luckily control themselves don’t deserve to be punished.

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 1 week ago

Oof that's a terrible idea

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I agree that those are way over the top but attractive packaging for selling drugs is just not ok. And i say this as an enjoyer. Responsible use is common and normal human behavior.

Completely neutral package with a clear label of for informed, responsible, adult use is just sensible.

But i want to stretch that the image it is sold as does not mean that should be the final look. There is a lot of potential creativity left to make something safe to put on a shelf or site but is in hand still classy for the user to enjoy. After all, the good vibes of aesthetics on the table are not nearly as bad as those from the drug itself, while taking that away actually puts more emphasis in that purely chemical high.

If we go to far we with with neutralizing we could end deciding that flavors make drugs appealing (flavored cigarettes are actually band in places) but for liquor that can backfire to reducing everything to wodka.

[-] Hirom@beehaw.org 7 points 1 week ago

That's the whole point.

[-] Sarmyth@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

It won't help beers but I wouldn't mind the wide scale reintroduction of decanters to the modern age. I have accumulated a few since I've been of drinking age and they all feel fancier than pouring from the bottle.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

What I've learned over the past five years is that you have to be very careful with this kind of mandate, or it will make people despise and doubt your whole organization. I actually think that this kind of warning label will increase the amount of cancer people get, because they'll start smoking cigarettes again, which are much worse.

Edit: To clarify, the reason people would start smoking cigarettes is not because it's an alternative to alcohol; it's because they would lose faith in health and safety warnings altogether. It's stupid, but people are stupid.

[-] Laser@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago

Has smoking and drinking ever been an exclusive or decision for people? I never smoked and wouldn't have traded drinking for it, as I consider smoking completely disgusting. The effects are also very different.

The bigger issue is that drug laws regarding legality of a substance are completely detached from scientific reality, leaving people with no alternatives but some of the more dangerous substances for recreative use.

load more comments (14 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Majestic@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

The thing is. Alcohol can be used in for example cooking. Cigarettes have no good purpose, nothing you can really do with them that has utility outside of direct consumption that exposes you to the full health risks.

And at that point I fear you're also diminishing the unique harm and danger of cigarettes which produce second hand smoke which exposes others, including kids to health dangers without their consent.

How about we slay the first demon here before starting to equate another lesser one with it? Most people do not have a risk of getting addicted to alcohol, nearly everyone has a risk with a few tries of getting addicted to nicotine and it's spreading like a plague among children with candy and sweets flavored cartridges for the poison that is e-cigs. This undoing a generation of progress.

It really does risk making more people dismissing the unique dangers and threat of nicotine and smoke products by equating the two and risks creating a DARE moment where the whole thing is just mocked by rising anti-science, anti-expert sentiment spurred on by capitalists eager to undo regulations. I mean things like this are catnip to people like RFK who want to torpedo evidence based science in favor of vibes and snake oil because it presents an in with your average person to criticize the health establishment over at least misplaced priorities.

Drinking on its own is a danger to the drinker. Only when done to excess does it endanger others. Smoking at all produces second-hand smoke and can encourage others to join an addictive behavior that is very, very hard to quit and will be a monkey on their back for years, decades after they stop whereas MOST humans can stop drinking alcohol with less ill effects than stopping daily consumption of caffeine.

Any amount of alcohol is a carcinogen and unhealthy, but at the same time we have to ask what level of risk is okay. Any amount of charred food cooked on charcoal is also a health risk for instance and can lead to exposure to carcinogens. The unique problems of cigarettes and nicotine were always impacts to others who didn't make that choice including children trapped with smoker parents as well as the addictive properties which left most users trapped or facing a hard fight to stop as well as bad behaviors by industry to hook people while they were young and down. Yes the alcohol industry also tries to get teens and young people to drink but nearly all of them can just stop after they leave college and go on to have a healthy life with zero or limited interactions with alcohol, you cannot say the same for someone who starts using nicotine and uses it heavily for even 6 months.

[-] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week ago

It's a label change... you can still use it in your cooking.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
399 points (100.0% liked)

World News

33437 readers
322 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS