Has smoking and drinking ever been an exclusive or decision for people? I never smoked and wouldn't have traded drinking for it, as I consider smoking completely disgusting. The effects are also very different.

The bigger issue is that drug laws regarding legality of a substance are completely detached from scientific reality, leaving people with no alternatives but some of the more dangerous substances for recreative use.

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Smoking became disgusting when the campain against smoking became effective. In previous decades when people smoked more nobody ever called smoking disgusting. We haven't evolved that much since the 70s/80s. So what many people perceive as a disgusting habbit today is the effect of conditioning and propaganda. Smokers also had long lasting relations with non-smokers, now it is unthinkable a smoker and a non-smoker to even go out for a coffee together.

I am also surprised this discussion has gone so far so long and nobody has mentioned sugar and its bi-products (soft drinks, candy, sweets, ...) Is there such an addiction recognized and known as dangerous? Type-B diabetes has become common even for kids, especially in the west. The sweetest thing you will find in China doesn't even taste sweet, and if you offer a middle eastern pastry to a Chinese person they put half a spoon in their mouth and think they are about to die.

Super-Size it PLEASE!!!

[–] Laser@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Smoking became disgusting when the campain against smoking became effective.

Bullshit. My non-smoking parents called smoking disgusting in the 80s and probably before that. It became disgusting when addicts smoked everywhere without consideration for others, like in restaurants or on trains.

So what many people perceive as a disgusting habbit today is the effect of conditioning and propaganda. Smokers also had long lasting relations with non-smokers, now it is unthinkable a smoker and a non-smoker to even go out for a coffee together.

The fuck are you on about? I have no problem doing stuff with smokers and have had nobody ever claiming otherwise. Just don't smoke in a way that affects me.

I am also surprised this discussion has gone so far so long and nobody has mentioned sugar and its bi-products (soft drinks, candy, sweets, ...) Is there such an addiction recognized and known as dangerous?

Nice whataboutism. Btw, as far as I know, the same bodies pushing for regulating smoking and drinking more are also in favor of addressing this issue. And now matter how relevant it might be, your just detailing here.

Type-B diabetes has become common even for kids, especially in the west.

Sorry, I know types 1 and 2 only.

The sweetest thing you will find in China doesn't even taste sweet, and if you offer a middle eastern pastry to a Chinese person they put half a spoon in their mouth and think they are about to die.

Which China?

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

There is only one, the Peoples' Repuplic of China, the other is just a violent invasion and occupation by the US the Taiwanese people have endured.

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I didn't mean to imply that smoking and drinking were mutually exclusive, nor that one is an alternative to the other. I meant that people would be surprised by seeing these labels on alcohol, and then start to doubt all health-and-safety-related labels, then deduce that cigarettes must not be that bad.

Please note that I think this is poor logic, as I do think alcohol is unhealthy. I merely predict this response from people overall.

[+] iriyan@lemmy.ml -6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Scientifically we are not equal in this respect, most studies show during all ages and populations on earth there is a specific percent of the population that needs substances to control behavior. Whether it is smoking opium, sniffing coke, drinking wine, or injecting anti-depressants there are those born with a tendency to find such escape.

In the age where industry X can patent substance Y and sell it at 10000xcost .. there will be a motive for making competitor substances look bad.

[–] CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Did you just compare anti-depressants to sniffing coke? or are you referring to people doing anti-depressants recreationally?

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml -3 points 6 days ago

The only coke that is legally imported to the US is a subsidiary front of Coca-Cola supervised by a USAF agency. After processing part of the product goes to the sole soft drink manufacturer the rest goes to big-Pharma

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml -4 points 6 days ago

I am referring to people who can NOT do without behavior modification substances, legal, illegal, off the mini-market or the drug-store or the street, it makes no difference.

YES it is all over the literature, anti-depressants took up the slack of smoking and drinking quitting markets. From Big-Tobacco to Big-Pharma the goal is profit, and Prozac is one hell of alot more profitable than a good cigar. From Delaware to Georgia you have to use chemicals to stop tobacco from growing or use hybrids that are incapable of reproducing. Even if you can make Prozac in your kitchen you can't sell someone's patent.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You need to read this in the context of the post I replied to. I don't doubt what you're saying. But there was an implication that for some people, alcohol was the "healthier alternative" to smoking that they're now not using but instead smoke (which is supposed to be even less healthy, personally I can't rank their impact on health on a good foundation but this is what was implied).

I know people self-medicate and that others use recreationally. But I'm sure alcohol and tobacco industry don't give a fuck about the legality of the other. If anything, there's probably a synergy.

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml -3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I am not a chemist but one high up in the chem-health research chain was telling me the basic ingredient on most popular "energy" drinks is a slightly modified chain of usual methamphetamines that is not banned by FDA or Euro-equivalent agencies, and in it reacts with alcohol to produce the effects now known to kids all around the world.

There is no dirtier pusher than Big-Pharma and Big-Tobacco... The crap is so evil it resembles 30-40s German "industries" like the Bayer-nazis now part of Monsanto.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That sounds "far-fetched" to put it mildly.

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So you must be a biochemist, in which case you would have no problem explaining to us lesser mortals how different the formulas are and how unrelated they are.
You would also by the topic know exactly in which journals to search and find whether this is far-fetched or not, and you have access to them when the rest of us have to pay. If you are not even close to that field to tell how can you be so sure to put it mildly?

Do you know how many scientific findings are right there, published, but millions are paid so media do not make "common sense" out of them?

What is wrong and so special about kids in the US that such a high percentage require ritalin? Why not the kids of the rest of the world? What are the side-effects of long term ritalin addiction?

At least tobacco takes decades to kill you but will keep your mind sharp if you need it.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There are just so many holes in that theory that I don't believe it, biochemist or not.

First and unrelated to any biochemical processes being that you claim that "it reacts with alcohol to produce the effects now known to kids all around the world". But kids for sure don't mix these with alcohol, the discussion here was always about marketing the drinks to kids while they have caffeine and high sugar. Not that they mix it with alcohol.

Second, at least for other previously legal substances that evaded existing laws that I read into, molecules were attached to existing substances (e.g. 1p-LSD) which in the body lost the attached molecule. However, the companies producing these had to handle LSD, and for that had a license. If this approach was used here, the energy drink companies would need to have licenses to handle methamphetamine and its predecessors.

Third, most chemical reactions are a bit more complicated than "just add ethanol".

Lastly, it was you who made an unsubstantiated claim and, citing Hitchen's razor, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".

At least tobacco takes decades to kill you but will keep your mind sharp if you need it.

Are you implying tobacco is less bad for your brain than amphetamines?

After his mother's death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet but complained that it impacted his performance: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his use of Ritalin and Benzedrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality

Not that I'm recommending this.

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 days ago

Ok, peace, tell us more about Hitchens :)