fight the right problem
Thu Sep 20 02:27:28 EDT 2018
Drunk driving: society's response is to prohibit driving. Wouldn't it be better to prohibit drinking?
Problem drinkers have far more problems from their drinking than just impaired driving.
Many people who can't drive can no longer get to their jobs. That cascades another set of problems, like unemployment causing homelessness. Losing health care. Wouldn't it be better to keep these people working? (They might be better workers without access to alcohol.) That homelessness could be families, not just individuals.
Do people have a right to drink, and get drunk, and perhaps stay drunk? Perhaps, as with so many other things, those rights should be limited at the point that they impinge on the liberties of others. Society has (finally) decided that smokers don't have the right to put carcinogens in the air that the rest of us breathe. (That same logic could take a lot of cars off the roads.) Maybe we shouldn't have to put up with the behavior of chronic alcoholics? Pay the medical costs of preventable accidents?
We'd need ID that indicates whether a person is allowed to buy alcohol.
How would that work? Stores and bars that sell alcohol would card people, but now they'd card everyone, without assuming that people who look old enough are legal to drink. Anyone - even non-drivers - who wanted to buy alcohol would need an ID. And social hosts would have to card everyone before serving drinks. We would all be liable for giving alcohol to an alcoholic whose subsequent behavior caused injury or damage.
This all sounds cumbersome and difficult, but alcoholism is a huge problem. Many lives are being wasted; lost productivity, chronic diseases, early death. Systematically preventing alcoholics from drinking would have tremendous benefits. (Except for the brewers and distillers. But it's hard to justify profits from the misery of others.)
If it were up to me, we'd get rid of tobacco, too. Why should we be growing something that has no beneficial uses? That land could be growing food. (And smokers have more traffic accidents.)
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1016275.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Drunk driving: society's response is to prohibit driving. Wouldn't it be better to prohibit drinking?
Problem drinkers have far more problems from their drinking than just impaired driving.
Many people who can't drive can no longer get to their jobs. That cascades another set of problems, like unemployment causing homelessness. Losing health care. Wouldn't it be better to keep these people working? (They might be better workers without access to alcohol.) That homelessness could be families, not just individuals.
Do people have a right to drink, and get drunk, and perhaps stay drunk? Perhaps, as with so many other things, those rights should be limited at the point that they impinge on the liberties of others. Society has (finally) decided that smokers don't have the right to put carcinogens in the air that the rest of us breathe. (That same logic could take a lot of cars off the roads.) Maybe we shouldn't have to put up with the behavior of chronic alcoholics? Pay the medical costs of preventable accidents?
We'd need ID that indicates whether a person is allowed to buy alcohol.
How would that work? Stores and bars that sell alcohol would card people, but now they'd card everyone, without assuming that people who look old enough are legal to drink. Anyone - even non-drivers - who wanted to buy alcohol would need an ID. And social hosts would have to card everyone before serving drinks. We would all be liable for giving alcohol to an alcoholic whose subsequent behavior caused injury or damage.
This all sounds cumbersome and difficult, but alcoholism is a huge problem. Many lives are being wasted; lost productivity, chronic diseases, early death. Systematically preventing alcoholics from drinking would have tremendous benefits. (Except for the brewers and distillers. But it's hard to justify profits from the misery of others.)
If it were up to me, we'd get rid of tobacco, too. Why should we be growing something that has no beneficial uses? That land could be growing food. (And smokers have more traffic accidents.)
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1016275.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]