Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 21, 2014

Drink — yes.Smoke — no.

Try all possible poisons and eventually you will find your killer.

Perpetuates a myth that heavy drinkers are necessarily alcoholics. I used to regularly drink about ten pints of beer a day but never became dependent on it. Most of a group I drank with would have an alcohol-free month to give their liver a rest; mind you, they chose February as it was the shortest month. ;-)

Whereas some – most? – drinkers are not affected by addictive effects of alcohol, I reckon anyone can become addicted to nicotine as it is more addictive than cocaine. If tobacco had only been discovered today, it would have been classified as a class-A drug in the UK.

I remember a PSA that asked, “Do you remember your first cigarette?” Then it showed a kid lighting up…. and coughing. “Maybe your body was trying to tell you something.”

Almost as addictive as cigarette taxes. Does Mr. Butts know a Miss Loosie?

Make it legal and tax it. Then all the problems go away. Say hello to Mary Jane.

I wonder if that’s an accurate statistic: 10% of consumers buy 50% of all booze. Because that tells me that I’m probably not doing my part.

Abusers of alcohol and tobacco, by shortening their lives, are the only ones doing something to save the Social Security system. They also are reducing their total costs to society by a factor of ten (much higher medical costs for chronic conditions in old age). So we should be thanking them, as long as they keep their smoke and cars away from us.

Though it’s late, the holiday is still going on; so, Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah to you !

Many who smoke also have expensive treatment before they pass, they don’t just immediately croak.

Many a kid puffed on a cig, put it down and never picked it up again…

Mark twain said that he knew someone about to die. He asked her if she had any bad habits. She said no. He said that is too bad, if you just had some bad habits to give up, you just might live a little longer…

Casinos have a similar business model. The bulk of their profits come from gambling addicts.

Every time I read these comics about how terrible tobacco is it makes me want to take up safe and healthy meth or crack.

This message brought to you by the National Association of Crack Dealers.

The costs of eliminating the pot farms in the National forests is staggering…who pays that tab?

I’ve had friends who said, “I can quit anytime”. HAD is the word, alright. Miss you all!

It’s extremely hard to legislate Morality and Stupidity!

Not to get too serious — or factual — here, but I do a lot of work on zoning for recovery communities, sober living homes, group homes, and small halfway houses. I’ve got From what I’ve learned working closely with the operators of these community residences, and with all due respect to Cloddy, if somebody drives 10 pints of beer daily, that person is most definitely a practicing alcoholic.

The alcohol – smoking connection is deep. Nearly all of the residents of every single recovery home, sober living home, and small halfway house for recovering alcoholics/drug addicts that I have visited (we’re talking scores of them), are chain smokers. Much to the consternation of the operators, they’re traded one addiction for another.

The average can of beer contains 154 calories. That means Mr. 10-beers-a-day takes in 1,540 calories every day. The average male between 31 and 50 takes in 2200 to 3000 calories a day. So Mr. 10-beers takes in the largest portion of his calories every day in beer. I don’t need a picture to imagine what he would look like on such a diet. From WebMD on the nutrition involved: “Heavy alcohol consumption wipes out any health benefit and increases risk of liver cancer, cirrhosis, alcoholism, and obesity,” Rimm says. “Heavy or binge drinkers may have increased risk of stroke, chronic hypertension, weight gain, colon and breast cancer.” So unless Mr. 10-beers is extremely wealthy he’s eventually going to run up some major health costs that the rest of us will be forced to pay for.

Perhaps, but while they’re still alive their cost on society and the medical bills they incur are much higher than the non-addict who lives longer.

A lot of idiots try to defend drug use by pointing to smoking and alcohol. Hey, why don’t we legalize slavery, after all we have prisons and make kids go to school. Idiots. Lower alcohol consumption and fewer smokers is always a good thing.

One the one hand, think opium in China. On the other, you think money spent is more damaging than drugs????

“What’s your poison of choice? We should have that right without the govt making it illegal”.It is intersting how many equate all drugs with marijuana, on both sides of the discussion.Marijuana is relatively harmless even though some of its users have been known to charge police without realizing the danger created.Some other drugs make the users wildly violent and are associated with assorted murders of people who had not used those drugs, were just in the way or in the way of them buying or stealing more.We had a 30 year old December 1 who was using Spice when he went to an elementary school wearing nothing but a T-shirt and charging people, throwing himself into trees, obviously in an altered mental state. The deputies were mindful of the danger associated with shooting him, so they used a Taser, Which had no effect on him, so they did it again and again. Five times total before he finally stopped attacking them.Two weeks later this unarmed victim of police-tasing died.We are all glad he was white — unlike the children he put on a show for.

“So who do you think?”My question was posed sarcastically, sorry – didn’t mean to offend. ;-)

I know that everyone who got hooked on cigs had to have a first time, however, many who tried it didn’t get hooked since they didn’t like it.

It is sometimes difficult to make written words understood.

My statement (late in this game) is that not all drugs are equal. There is NO safe amount of tobacco; but alcohol, in moderation, has some benefits.Yes; research is being done to use tobacco for medicinal purpose, but the public use has nothing but bad effects.

@Montessoriteacher

“I know that everyone who got hooked on cigs had to have a first time, however, many who tried it didn’t get hooked since they didn’t like it.”.“It is sometimes difficult to make written words understood.”.Understood other than why anyone would consider it important. If you know some action will kill a tenth of those who try it, why would anyone advise a friend or child, “9 out of 10 who do this live through it by not doing it again.”???The substances under discussion have much higher ultimate fatality rates. Even those who die of other causes have their quality of life degraded.

You got that one figured out.

@Ryan (Say what now‽)“There is NO safe amount of tobacco; but alcohol, in moderation, has some benefits.”.I’ve seen some of these studies and don’t. question their results, but do question one conclusion. Is it the alcohol which is beneficial in small doses, or the other substances in the beverages.Restated: would they benefit from the same amount of pure ethanol?Would they benefit from wine sans the alcohol?.And there’s the total numbers concept. If you knew the drinkers would only drink in moderation, that would be all that mattered.Instead, you KNOW not all will. Some will become deadly drunk drivers, drunk killers (since many, many homicides involve drinking first), medical cases involving liver destruction or cancer. Whatnot..If you extend the lives of 80% of drinkers by a year (just randomly selected numbers) but reduce the lifespan of the other fifth by more than 5 years each, you have a negative extention. Every time a drunk driver kills a baby in the car he or she hits, there’s an easy 80 years reduction. A drunk killing his friend in a drunken rage probably shaves 60 years..It is unreasonable to only count benefits without also counting costs.

So, why doesn’t New York City make smoking illegal? Oh, wait, they get $5.85 for every pack sold. That’s why the police will strangle people for selling loose cigarettes.