Medications can help the 1 in 12 people who suffer from alcohol use disorder. But most will never be treated.
There is something that kills more Americans every year than drug overdoses, than guns, than car accidents. It’s legal, doesn’t require a background check to buy, is widely advertised, and if you’re 21, you can probably buy it at your corner store. It’s called alcohol.
While cold beers, glasses of wine, and hard liquor cocktails are often treated as end-of-the-workday or weekend indulgences, alcohol is technically a psychoactive, addictive drug, one linked to over 50 fatal conditions, including heart disease; breast, pancreatic, and stomach cancers; liver disease; hypertension; and stroke. It contributes to the death of 140,000 people in the US annually, making it one of the leading causes of preventable death in the country.
More and more research supports the conclusion that even light drinking — that is, less than 15 drinks a week for men or eight drinks a week for women — can contribute to an increased risk for heart disease and cancers. More recent medical recommendations in countries like Canada have increasingly tightened, moving toward the idea that there is no truly safe level of alcohol consumption.
Because it falls under a completely different agency….
The bureau of ALCOHOL, tobacco, and firearms.
It was separate starting with the bureau of Prohibition which was created in 1919, before the FDA was created in 1927. Before then it was just the bureau of chemistry.
You are correct!..
The fact that it falls under a different agency is the issue I’m getting at. We ingest alcohol and it has a direct negative affect on our health, I wish it was regulated alongside the other borderline toxic shit we ingest like corn syrup and food colorings.
Would be nice to know how many calories or carbs are in the drinks from a casual consumer standpoint anyway.
I agree it should fall under the FDA today, but with everything else going on, restructuring both the FDA and ATF is pretty low on the list of things to do.
If only there was a major surge in health issues and deaths involving consumption of alcohol and firearms use/abuse to spark some motion in Congress to address the issues.