http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07952b1/louis-theroux-drinking-to-oblivion
After watching this sobering documentary about the true effects of alcohol addiction, I had to take a moment to write this post and make a few personal comments I feel are really relevant to this module and my overarching CoP2 and CoP3 proposal themes.
Alcohol
Important info/research/quotes:
• has little - no medical benefit (other than potential pain relief, and as a cleaning fluid)
• 1 of the 5 most harmful and addictive psychoactive substances in the world
• heavy addiction death trap: drinking is killing, however stopping can be just as deadly
• major cause of serious crime, abuse
• a well known carcinogen
• Public Health England, an executive agency of the Department of Health, estimates that 10.8million people drink at risky levels and 1.6million are dependent on alcohol.
• Almost 70 per cent of alcohol sold in England is consumed by drinkers who are risking their health, a study has claimed.
• The alcohol industry makes an estimated £16.35bn per year in sales to harmful drinkers in England, according to figures seen by The Guardian.
> link: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/problem-drinkers-alcohol-industry-most-sales-figures-reveal
> link: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/22/problem-drinkers-alcohol-industry-most-sales-figures-reveal
Nicotine
Important info/research/quotes:
• more than one quarter of all cancer deaths can be attributed to smoking
• 3rd most addictive substance known to man (heroin 1st, cocaine 2nd)
• a primary cause of preventable illness and death.
• every year smoking causes around 100,000 deaths in the UK
• causes around 80% of deaths from lung cancer, around 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema, and about 14% of deaths from heart disease
• it is estimated that globally 600,000 deaths a year are caused by secondhand smoke. Most of these deaths are among women and children.
> link: http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_94.pdf
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A Sad Truth:
Both alcohol and nicotine are clearly 2 of the most harmful and most addictive psychoactive substances in society today and this should be common knowledge to us all by now.
> Instead, these are amongst the most used and very very few psychoactive substances that remain legal and accessible to us.
So I ask....
1: If nicotine and alcohol are as harmful as the current facts and medical research have proven them to be- why not control, restrict and ban these substances like the rest have been?
2: Why keep these extremely harmful substances legal and readily accessible within society - BUT YET completely ban other substances (including the research, trials and exploration into any known potential) which have now been outright proven to be less harmful than nicotine / alcohol, and which show a real potential of being hugely beneficial to us?
- including the progression of medical sciences, the treatment of mental illness (PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorders etc), addiction, Dementia and the treatment of Cancer (recent studies).
• The saddest reality of all this is the lack of independent understanding, education, knowledge and truth surrounding these substances in general society today, including the scale of the damage that they cause and how this truly compares to other less harmful - more beneficial - yet ILLEGAL - psychoactive substances.
• We live in a society where in general we trust our governments, doctors, scientists and researchers to make key decisions for us about our lives and how we live them. We take their "specialist" advice when told what is healthy/unhealthy, legal/illegal, helpful/harmful - and because of their influential position within society - we instantly accept this information as gospel, fact and truth - instead of using our own common sense.
• The only reason I can see at this point in my research - for these specific substances to still remain legal whilst continuing to be this destructive to our health, society and culture as a whole - is money. Too much money is being made from the sale of these psychoactive substances, that the risks to health, increase in crime and effect on society & wellbeing as a whole - is just not a big enough incentive to restrict and ban them.
- So why should society abide by and accept our governments laws, as well as believe in our doctors, scientists and researchers opinions about other psychoactive substances and what is good/right/lawful for us - without challenging them? - when health, well-being and impact on society and cultural values clearly don't seem to be a priority in the case of nicotine or alcohol.
The extreme drug laws that are enforced by our government, I feel, are outdated and are ultimately still in place to "save-face" from a failed attempt at a "War on drugs" and the now $100 billion spent globally on this effort every single year.
For the last 45 years (since Richard Nixon waged US 'War on Drugs' - 1971), these laws have prevented up-to-date, vital + necessarily research into the true potential of psychoactive substances. Until proven to be more harmful than good (which should be the first point of call before any ban from science and research), these psychoactive substances (such as MDMA, LSD, cannabis, Ayahuasca, Psilocybin, Mescaline etc) should not be made illegal or restricted from science. Not if much more harmful substances, such as nicotine and alcohol, can remain widely available and directed at us to abuse, harm others and spend all our wages on.
Key quote:
"As the study points out, it's interesting that legal status doesn't necessarily have anything to do with addictiveness or harm. Tobacco and alcohol both rank fairly high in terms of addictiveness but remain legal, while other illegal substances like cannabis, LSD, and ecstasy fell lower on the list."
> link: http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-are-the-most-addictive-drugs-heroin-alcohol-2016-3
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Further findings:
Movie: "Prescription Thugs"
http://www.prescriptionthugs.com/
Key movie quotes:
• "In the past 10 years (as of 2015), the 11 largest pharmaceutical drug companies have
made over $711 BILLION"
• "The pharmaceutical industry remains the most profitable business in the US. More
success and financial gain for these big league pharmaceutical companies will always
remain possible as long as more americans are encouraged to take drugs"
• "Ethical pharmaceuticals?......AS IF!"
• "All just an ingenious marketing plan"
• "A lot of people have this misconception that pharmaceutical industry is altruistic and that they are looking to heal the world... - There couldn't be anything further from the truth. The pharmaceutical industry and their invested interested is in making their stock/share holders money. - Because the pharmaceutical industry isn't in the business of health and healing, - it is in the business of disease management and symptoms maintenance."
• 'Restless Leg Syndrome' - "75% of the time statistics say that when a patient visits a doctor to request a drug, the doctor will give it to them because the doctor considers it his business - and they are his customer."