[Vision2020] Alcohol called most dangerous intoxicant

[Ted Moffett]

The simple point is that obesity is a medical condition that has
multiple behavoral causes, food and exercise, in many cases.  But
tracing tobacco use as a cause of lung cancer and heart disease and
emphysema, is isolating tobacco use as a single behavior, linked to
these medical conditions.

Can you trace obesity as a single empirical behavior linked to various
medical outcomes?  Obesity is not a behavior.  I am now engaging in
obesity as a behavior.  Does this make sense?  What if I state that I
am now smoking a cigarette?  Does this make sense?  If I am commiting
obesity as a behavior, which is somehow nonsensical, then there is no
doubt I have a medical condition.  But if I state I am smoking a
cigarette, clearly an empirical behavior, this does not always imply I
have a medical condition: I am engaging in a behavior which may or may
not result in a serious medical condition, and does not by itself
indicate an addiction.

To compare tobacco use (not by itself a medical condition) as a
behavior as it contributes to disease, to the behaviors that
contribute to obesity (a medical condition), requires isolating the
behaviors that cause obesity and resulting disease, and comparing
these behaviors to tobacco use, a single behavior, and the diseases
resulting:  you would compare diet as a behavior, and exercise as a
behavior, as they contribute to a premature death rate associated with
the medical condition of obesity, and tobacco use as a single behavior
contributing to the medical conditions it causes.

Therefore you would have differing rates of contritution to various
diseases, based on different specific behaviors: diet, exercise and
tobacco use.

I wonder if people who eat a very healthy diet, and exercise
regularly, yet still are addicted to tobacco (is this possible?), have
a lower premature death rate from their tobacco addiction?

On 11/1/10, Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl.fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Hi Ted,
>
> I think/hope that we can agree that both smoking & obesity cause all too
> many premature deaths & illnesses.
>
> I disagree that comparing the two is like comparing apples & oranges,
> though, because the vast majority of obesity-related health problems/deaths
> are also "behavior" related.  Eating foods that are too high in fats
> (particularly animal-based), complex carbohydrates, and/or just plain too
> high in calories are behaviors/choices, and so, too, is not to getting
> adequate exercise.
>
> Addiction (e.g., smoking) is a medical condition just as is obesity.
>
>
>
> Saundra Lund
> Moscow, ID
>
> The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
> nothing.
> ~ Edmund Burke
>
> ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2010 through life plus
> 70 years, Saundra Lund.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
> the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
> author.*****
>
> ----Original Message-----
> From: Ted Moffett [mailto:starbliss at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 10:52 AM
> To: Art Deco
> Cc: Vision 2020
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Alcohol called most dangerous intoxicant
>
> Also consider the breaking news, gravity discovered!
>
> It has long been known that alcohol addiction and abuse are associated with
> more damage to personal lives and society as a whole, than any other single
> drug, both for its mind and behavior altering impacts, especially its
> association with violence, and its medical impacts.
>
> But tobacco use causes the most premature death, based solely on medical
> illness, than any other single drug (or plant use, given that tobacco use,
> like cannabis use, is not just the use of the drugs nicotine or THC, but the
> consumption of many compounds from the plants).  However, tobacco (like
> cannabis) is not associated with high rates of violent crime (rape, murder,
> battery, etc.), as is alcohol, though some claim drug cartel violence is
> economically connected to the underground cannabis business, a fact
> sometimes asserted to push for legalization of cannabis.
>
> Previous discussions on Vision2020 (at the time of Moscow's then proposed
> bar smoking ordinance, now law) regarding the claim that tobacco use is the
> number one cause of premature death from medical impacts, led to the claim
> that obesity has overtaken tobacco use as the number one cause of premature
> death, based on medical illness.
>
> But this is comparing apples to oranges, given that tobacco use is a
> behavior, the consumption of a specific plant into the body, either by
> smoking or chewing (who eats tobacco, like many do cannabis?  Alice B.
> Toklas cookbook: http://www.subrosa.arbre.us/SubRosaBrownies.html  ; The
> tobacco plant is far too toxic to eat, cannabis far less so...).
>
> Obesity is not a behavior, but a medical condition, with multiple behavioral
> influences.  While a nutritionally compromised diet always has negative
> medical impacts, a large percentage of those who are obese would be far less
> so, even with their poor eating behavior, if high rates of exercise were
> engaged in regularly from childhood into adulthood.
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 11/1/10, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
>> FYI
>>
>> Wayne A. Fox
>> 1009 Karen Lane
>> PO Box 9421
>> Moscow, ID  83843
>>
>> waf at moscow.com
>> 208 882-7975
>>
>> _____________________________________
>>  November 1, 2010
>> Alcohol called most dangerous intoxicant Study finds more damage than
>> from cocaine, heroin Maria Cheng Associated Press
>>
>> LONDON - Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and
>> crack cocaine, according to a new study.
>>
>> British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine,
>> heroin, Ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive
>> they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.
>>
>> Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the
>> human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage
>> caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic
>> costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
>>
>> Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the
>> most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social
>> effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But
>> overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin
>> and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.
>>
>> The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice
>> Studies and was published online today in the medical journal, Lancet.
>>
>> Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and
>> has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around
> them.
>>
>> "Just think about what happens (with alcohol) at every football game,"
>> said Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the
>> University of Amsterdam. He was not linked to the study and
>> co-authored a commentary in the Lancet.
>>
>> When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is
>> also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater
>> percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin.
>>
>> But experts said it would be impractical and incorrect to outlaw alcohol.
>>
>> "We cannot return to the days of prohibition," said Leslie King, an
>> adviser to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and one of the study's
> authors.
>> "Alcohol is too embedded in our culture and it won't go away."
>>
>>
>
>