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Excessive drinking killed over 3 million people in 2016
Drinking too much alcohol killed more than 3 million people in 2016, mostly men, the World Health Organization said.
The U.N. health agency also warned that current policy responses are not sufficient to reverse trends predicting an increase in consumption over the next 10 years.
In a new report Friday, the agency said that about 237 million men and 46 million women faced alcohol problems, with the highest prevalence in Europe and the Americas. Europe has the highest global per capita alcohol consumption, even though it has already dropped by 10 percent since 2010.
Around a third of alcohol-related deaths were a result of injuries, including car crashes and self-harm, while about one in five were due to either digestive disorders or cardiovascular diseases. Cancers, infectious diseases, mental disorders and other health conditions were also to blame.
From the Chapter 4 summary:
In 2016, the harmful use of alcohol resulted in some 3 million deaths (5.3% of all deaths) worldwide and 132.6 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) – i.e. 5.1% of all DALYs in that year. Mortality resulting from alcohol consumption is higher than that caused by diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and diabetes. Among men in 2016, an estimated 2.3 million deaths and 106.5 million DALYs were attributable to the consumption of alcohol. Women experienced 0.7 million deaths and 26.1 million DALYs attributable to alcohol consumption.
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Even Moderate Drinking Linked to a Decline in Brain Health
American Society of Clinical Oncology: Alcohol Use Increases Risk of Cancer
Study: No "Safe" Level of Alcohol Consumption
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:44PM (6 children)
Alcohol: ~3,000,000
Marijuana: ~0
<sarcasm>...yep, gotta keep that pot off the street</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:29PM (4 children)
I don't think that you can ascertain that there were ~0 deaths due to marijuana. Because WHO includes all alcohol-related deaths, then you have to include all marijuana-related deaths. That would have to include deals gone bad, so one party shoots the other. We had a rather spectacular shooting here a few years ago. One know pot-grower found another pot-grower on the public road adjacent to his grow. He confronted his competitor, words were exchanged, shots were exchanged, and one guy died. Pot-related deaths are probably way down, because pot is becoming mainstream, but there have always been deaths related to pot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:21PM (3 children)
That's a harmful-legislation-related death. It only occurs because evil legislators have imposed idiotic legislation absolutely guaranteed to produce thriving black markets. Pot is a weed you can grow indoors or in many climates; it happily grows wild. There is no cause for shortage or serious competition except what bad legislation has created. To lay such deaths at the feet of the plant is to ignore the fundamental cause of the problem. Or to pretend to.
FTFY.
Harmful legislation — legislators — created the unregulated criminal black market; all deaths and collateral damage due to that market can be laid directly at the feet of the legislators responsible. Just as when prohibition moved alcohol out of the mainstream, the legislation that created the black market for alcohol immediately caused deaths. When that legislation went away, so did the black market, and so did the black-market-related violence.
Trying to legislate recreational drugs away simply creates more problems for the people. It's common human nature to be inclined to indulge in such things, and any legislation that tries to suppress that is bound to cause great harm, just as we have seen.
Of course, we have to recognize that the typical legislator doesn't make laws for the people; they make them to financially benefit their cronies / fluffers (the alcohol industry, which [correctly] views pot as severe competition; all levels of our so-called "justice" system; and lately private prisons) in order to increase their wealth and receive the benefits / kickbacks thereof, and work also very hard to scare the mommies and daddies so they can get re-elected for (cough) "saving the children."
In any case, I said "~0", not "0", allowing for perhaps a death from a bale of pot landing on someone's head from a sufficient height to do them in. That you might be able to argue as an actual pot-related death, though really, even that is just a workplace safety issue. :)
PS: I don't smoke the weed. I did when I was a teenager, but lost interest in it and all other psychoactive recreational drugs before I was 20. I just find it incredibly offensive that legislators get away with doing so much completely uncalled for damage to the people. It really brings home what utter scumbags they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:26PM
Oh I'm sure somewhere some dumbass has been super high and a death resulted, but statistically insignificant. Also such a dumbass is probably mixing a variety of things, most likely alcohol at the least.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:37AM (1 child)
To add to your points, I recently heard a retired police office on the radio opine that pot should stay illegal because "the people who smoke it are criminals" which I thought should have been challenged by the interviewer, but wasn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:36AM
So you haven't heard about how the pot-detecting dogs will be killed if its legalized?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:41PM
Don't worry, when the eye of sauron turns back towards pot they've find all sorts of health issues to link it to.