NightOwlWhy aren’t health warnings on cigarettes expanded to alcohol?
mySFWaccountDon’t forget sugar too!
HeartyBeastThe answer is in the article: “ I don’t want to say that there are necessarily equivalent health risks,”
I would argue the overwhelming majority of consumers do not know alcohol is a proven carcinogen, and many would still choose to make more health conscious choices, even though the relative risk is lower than smoking.
While alcohol is a carcinogen, it only accounts for something like 3% of cancers deaths, mostly paired with liver disease. Hell, breathing air in a city causes more cancer deaths than alcohol.
This whole article reads like a modern temperance movement, trying to stamp out vice by comparing one harm to another, despite how different the harms are.
We know the harms of alcohol, they are different than the harms of tobacco. They should not be regulated the same. This article misses that completely.
FreeBooteR69Being a carcinogen is alcohols minor side effect. Don't forget alcohol poisoning and the damage it does to families and relationships due to alcoholism, and another biggie, driving under the influence.
Yes
We know the harms of alcohol, they are different than the harms of tobacco. They should not be regulated the same. This article misses that completely.
I just didn't list out the harms of alcohol, or how they're regulated, because I thought everyone knew.
He clearly didn’t forget, unless you think tobacco also carries the same family and relationship damage and driving under the influence?
The list of proven and likely carcinogens is rather large. Do we put a similar health warning on every sausage and strip of bacon? Plus planks of wood (wood dust contains known carcinogen). If you extend the list to mutagens, rather than proven carciogens the list gets even longer
Because it would hurt sales. Duh!
twistedtxbThe fact that wine and beer bottles are exempt from those Nutrition Facts labels is utter nonsense.
If people knew how much sugar and calories are in their drink maybe they would think twice
I was drinking a while claw with my mother-in-law, and reflected that 100 calories was pretty good.
She responded she preferred her normal vodka sodas because they have 0 calories…
Honestly I wouldn’t know if I didn’t have to take nutrition 101 in college.
Actually who am I kidding if I didn’t know I probably would’ve googled it.
littlecoltFace. Palm. I hate this so much. I’m an overweight guy who has struggled with alcohol abuse over the pandemic. The caloric content of hard liquor is huge. So many sources will tell you it’s so much better than beer. I remember when I was trying to be low carb back into he day, I was only drinking vodka and diet sodas. It was fine at first… Until my tolerance rise to the level of needing a litre or more of vodka in a night to get drunk. That’s some serious calories! You WILL get fat on hard liquor, I don’t care how low-carb it is.
A lot less calories in a litre of vodka than the alcohol content equivalent of beer. It is a lot lower calorie than beer, but you’re not meant to sit around and drink a litre of fucking vodka dude. That’s definitely not on “the sources” lol
CurlyMoustacheZero calories? 100 g of 60 % vodka is 370 calories
90 cal a shot is my usual quick math. Clearly not my mother in law’s.
Not having to list ingredients is a real pain if you have uncommon food allergies.
Alcohol is required to list ingredients and allergy information.
There are nutrition labels on alcohol in Europe, but people there drink as much as here.
Yup, just checked my beer. Lists ingredients and calories. In 2 langauges!
snooggumsThe cans of beer that I buy have ingredients and nutrition info like a soda can does.
Haven't seen any on liquor bottles though.
I don’t have any liquor bottles, but my wine bottles have ingredients info, but no nutrition info.
Depends on from where they were sourced.
My Itallian red wine has nutritional info, French sourced white wine has nutritional info, American sourced red wine has nothing.
A short search states that the US doesnt have to have labels on alcohol because it’s not regulated by the FDA.
In Canada beer alcohol isn’t required to have nutritional info.
Blaidd
24 litres of spirits is about 4 bottles of whiskey or vodka every 3 weeks.
That does seem like a lot to me.
wouldn't that come out as 2 bottles per month?
750ml is the typical size of a bottle, so it would be more like 32 bottles per year, or 2.67 bottles per month.
In beer form, it’s a bout a pint per day. Not too bad actually. I probably average close to that, since I’ll have a can of beer most nights, and a few pints and/or cocktails on weekends.
That does not sound bad at all actually
Kind of high food an average still, but an individual doing that won’t be terrible.
It’s so relative. That sounds terrible to me. I however might drink 5 drinks a year.
True, one of my neighbour drank 1 bottle of wine at diner and 1 at supper, he died of cirrhosis of liver at around 60 though.
This I fully agree with, and have no idea why they are currently exempted but assume lobbying.
The fact that wine and beer bottles are exempt from those Nutrition Facts labels is utter nonsense.
I did not know that. That is nuts.
But then when you do see the nutrition label, it ends up acting as an ad that it’s a healthier drink.
No one is going to stop drinking because the drinks have too much sugar or calories
Maybe. But I know some who would be drinking less
Not to mention some people also want to take serious track of their caloric and nutritional intake but also want to enjoy an alcoholic beverage.
Because alchol sellers aren’t widely considered as flat out evil as cigarette makers, meaning that they can still realistically grease the wheels of power with dump trucks full of money.
I’m sure cigarette makers would love to the do the same thing, but no politician is dumb enough to risk taking “campaign contributions” from people who are widely considered to be the scum of the earth. Alcohol makers still have a level of respectability that lets them get away with it.
I can think of local brewers and stuff that do it as a hobby, and just happened to take a chance to start doing it professionally. I don’t think these people are evil at all, they’re just trying to have fun with their interest (albeit one that isn’t great for your health) and make some money while doing so.
Can’t really say the same thing for tobacco. I’m sure in some places there may be a similar kind thing though, so that’s just a thought from my local perspective. All I know are big corporate brands for smoking
Very true. I was just comparing corporations to corporations. Craft breweries are certainly not evil; they’re the equivalent of local businesses for the most part.
IMO charging $16 a glass for another IPA with the same 3 hops that are in every IPA is pretty evil.
Economists: The high price is meant to scare you away.
Lemmy users: $16 and the same as every other IPA? Pour me another!
Bro it’s artisanal
no politician is dumb enough to risk taking “campaign contributions” from people who are widely considered to be the scum of the earth.
And yet they’ll accept campaign assistance from foreign and domestic oil companies:
Who do you think lobbied for banning flavored cigarettes and more control of vapes in the US?
I wholly agree with the author of this article, but implementing something like this will meet a lot of resistance.
Let’s not forget that cigarettes are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas alcohol is something we’ve consumed as a species since prehistoric times. There are a lot of cultural, social, and historical ties to the use of alcohol that people won’t let go easily and will make any attempt to reduce alcohol consumption an uphill battle.
No one recreationally smokes the same way that people might drink every once in a while.
You also have a lot of money spent by various alcohol manufacturers to keep alcohol from being treated like tobacco. If anything, drinking went up a lot with millennials.
girlfreddyI know quite a few people who only smoke on the rare occasions they have a drink.
I was not one of them.
rabI drink every day but only smoke socially
PatI always thought the hypocrisy between alcohol and cannabis packaging is ridiculous. If cigarettes and cannabis need to be heavily restricted in terms of having simple, plain packaging with health warnings, anything for sale that can cause health issues should be subject to the same restrictions.
Everything will eventually cause health issues. Some substances are more damaging than others, though. To avoid label fatigue, there is merit in limiting use to the worst offenders.
It has only been in the last few years that we are starting to question if alcohol is more damaging than we earlier realized. And, indeed, Health Canada labelling requirements for alcohol have become more stringent in that time. As we learn more, it is likely the labelling requirements will continue to evolve as well.
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆Because it would be weird reading that smoking alcohol is dangerous for pregnant women.
This damn nanny state is out of control! /s
Because the alcohol industry is still profitable enough for special treatment.
Meanwhile cannabis beverages are required to have:
- Nutrition facts including calories, sugar, etc.
- gigantic yellow warning with random health warning (e.g., don’t use if pregnant)
- huge red stop sign cannabis leaf logo
- KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
- big pain in the ass plastic childproof thing
None of these required on a can of beer.
From a harm reduction perspective, it’s a massive failure. Many cannabis beverages have very low nearly zero calories, sugar-free. For your physical health they are almost certainly less harmful than alcohol and I know many people would enjoy them as an alternative to alcohol.
We have faced a similar failure in harm reduction strategy regarding vaping versus tobacco. I think in both cases it’s a result of vested interests (tax revenue, lobbying, don’t know) trumping what is best for people.
The way Canada has handled cannabis legalization is embarrassing.
We’re still ahead of the people who haven’t legalised it or even criminalise it, though.
That’s not something to be proud of. Just because someone does it worse doesn’t mean you should be proud of how it’s done.
Yeah, I’m not saying we should rest on our laurels.
What do you mean? I’m not familiar