WARNING: READING THIS BLOG CAUSES DIFFERENCE IN OPINION ~Alex

Be warned, I wrote most of this a little while ago, and so some current affairs may be out of date by about 2 months or so. Enjoy:

Here it is. A new topic.

Once again, Alcohol has been criticized. People notice that young people drink and cause violence. This happens again and again, and nothing is done. Why? I don't know. Maybe because alcohol is not seen as bad. They want to stop violence? here's the first thing they did wrong;

1. Alcohol is seen in a completely different light; cast by popular culture and heritage, rather than health and understanding. Ask most teenagers (especially ones with access to alcohol) about alcohol and they'd say; "Oh sure, I'd go and get smashed this weekend. The massive hangover would still be worth it." However, of course having one cigarette would give you lung cancer and kill you. (Please note, I DO NOT endorse smoking, this is purely comparison between two legal mainstream non-hallucinogenic drugs for the purposes of argument. Do not smoke, it's really bad.) Here is the part where they are wrong:

-Alcohol is not only a drug that can be dangerous to you, it can be dangerous to others.

-Alcohol can cause cancers (and no, this is not an 'everything causes cancer' thing, it actually greatly increases risk of getting certain cancers such as mouth and liver)

-People around cigarettes can see smoke, and know when they are at risk. Chances are, you wouldn't see the drunk driver that rendered you a quadriplegic for the rest of your life.

Many people can argue with this, but deep in yourself you know this stuff is true.

When it was decided that mouthwash could increase the risk of cancer (the could [in italics] was later proven false very quickly) people went into uproar. They threw out their mouthwash like crazy, suddenly deciding that they must be at risk. The carcinogen, scientists claimed, was ethanol. Ethanol is exactly the same as pure alcohol, and guess what? You don't drink mouthwash! So while people were chucking out their Listerine, and still having a couple of Bundy&Coke's every night, guess which was the real cancer causer? I shouldn't have to tell you. It's still currently decided on that the two greatest risks of mouth cancer are cigarettes (tobacco, essentially) and alcohol.

Once again, people underestimate alcohol. No matter what people believe, most other mainstream drugs, although they can ruin your life, will not render others around you a quadriplegic. Alcohol can do this, in the form of drunk driving. If you go onto Youtube and look up this stuff it can really be quite scary. People become horribly mutilated as burns victims, and yet Smoking is the only legal drug submitted to biased propaganda.

According to an anti-smoking poster I once saw, smoking will immediately make you bony, with pale paper-thin skin of which cancerous organs are hanging out of. Your breath will be fly-infested, your hair greasy regardless of showering habits, and of course, you will have unexplainable puddles of slime on the ground beside you. THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION, I ACTUALLY SAW A POSTER EXACTLY LIKE THIS. Yet nothing on Alcohol, despite the fact that it's most likely that smoking will not render you a quadriplegic for the rest of your miserable life.

One politician suggested placing warning labels on alcohol similar to those on cigarette packets and packaging of other tobacco products. The difference? Smoking health warnings feature a cancerous lung or such other disturbing picture, with a bad message emblazoned across the pack; "Smoking Causes Lung Cancer." The proposed alcohol warning was a young guy being helped up by his friends. The message displayed? "Don't let Alcohol ruin your night." (This was most likely not the exact message, but it was something similar.) Guess what? Some poor man is going to read that and think 'Oh, I'd better not drink because if I do, I might fall over and cause no obvious damage to myself, which would apparently "ruin my night"' (I hope I accurately conveyed sarcasm through the medium of text).

I'll tell you what would really ruin your night? Getting into a liquor-fuelled fight and getting stabbed multiple times in the back until you slowly bleed to death and die. Or how about drinking until you pass out and throwing up on your own vomit? This can, and does happen. If people are going to be warned about something, why not this? How about making a warning showing a graphic image of a bar patron glassed across the face and displaying the message 'Alcohol Did This To Me'. I swear, there are hundreds more ways alcohol can "ruin your night" than making you fall over or get in a minor fist fight. If you're going to warn people about something, do it right for god's sake.

It's all futile in the end anyway. You can supress something, but you can never completely stop the use of it. Many people still smoke, regardless of the difficulties forced upon them to do so, and many more start. Drinking is no different in this respect. Any vice is safe in moderation, it's when you go over the edge that bad things happen.

How about a big black warning label on Pokies? 'Poker machines cause sore fingers if played for a really long time.' Expect to see it in the near future.

Comment if you want

~Alex