Alcohol Is Straining U.K.’s Health Care System
A new report by the NHS Confederation and Royal College of Physicians says the United Kingdom’s drinking culture is straining their health care system. The U.K.’s taxpayer-funded medical system, the National Health Service, now spends 2.7 billion pounds ($4.4 billion) a year treating patients for alcohol-related problems—double the amount five years ago, the report said.
Any strain on the U.K.’s health care system caused by marijuana users was not mentioned. Maybe it’s because they’re not straining the system? A 2006 study by the Canadian government concluded that the health care costs per alcohol user are eight times greater than the health care costs per marijuana user.
The new report also warns that about 10.5 million adults in Britain drink above sensible limits, and 1.1 million people have some form of alcohol addiction. In contrast, dependence on marijuana is both rare and mild. In a report commissioned by the White House, the Institute of Medicine concluded that, “Compared to most other drugs … dependence among marijuana users is relatively rare.” So, why does the substance that’s far less toxic, harmful and addictive remain illegal?
13 comments
Huummmm… Aint this interesting.
So drinkers are costing too much huh? Well seening how the U.K. is ahead of us in this ‘global governance’ thing by about 4 years, I see a new alcohol prohibition there coming. No you say? They lost their gun rights, they are a disarmed nation.Who would have thought that would have EVER happened to the stiff upper lips of the brits? So is a new alcohol prohibition so far fetched?
Now with that said , take a look at our own backyard for a minute. We are on the verge of a universal health care bill such as that of canada and yes..the U.K.
Cant you hear people crying that alcoholic are costing the system ? It can happen people. Total government control is creeping is so slow its hard to see it moving…it is.
Now the fact that they left out any strains caused by cannabis users isnt so suprising. I would bet if you ask , you would get an answer like ” That because our efforts in the drug war has kept usage down, there by reducing any health costs to the system.”
Now you could very well imagine our drug warriors here saying just that, with all the twisted lies they spin on a daily basis.
No they most certianly would use that as an opportunity to tout their ‘efforts’ to reduce drug use, not the truth that cannabis doesnt cause the terrible health effects other drugs do, such as…alcohol.
They would say , however, that the legalization of cannabis would be a detriment to the healthcare system. All the more reason for the they need to continue this insanity.
I could be wrong, but I dont think Im far off here.
Answering your final question:
1. Cannabis is illegal because its legality and increased use would bring with it a de facto legality of small-caliber screened long-stemmed one-hitter pipes which could thenceforth be openly traded and promoted, dooming the tobackgo industry profit margin which is based on hot-burning overdose $igarettes.
2. In turn, the tobackgo industry has a trump card in the form of the $igarette TAXE$ with which it helps support each prevailing government (including some like Pakistan where the dependence thereon is 10%, or Russia, 8%). If the adoption of cheap miniature pipes (now something you can be arrested for possessing on pretext that it is marijuana “drug paraphernalia”)by nicotine addicts killed the present-day tobackgo profit margin, governments would soon be scrambling to replace that lost tax revenue.
Support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act! http://www.cannabistaxact.org/ – Save the nation!
although many of us are well aware that cannabis isn’t a harmful substance when used responsibly, this little bit of info will feed the prohibitionist argument that alcohol and tobacco are a burden to health costs so why make another substance legal…but they cannot prove that legalizing cannabis will be a burden to health costs, because it wouldn’t.
Alcohol is fine, even healthy, up to a very moderate level, then it makes everything worse. It brings out the worst in humans, it makes many medications worse, even deadly, if used together, and it makes many routine activities, like driving, very dangerous.
The other thing that makes things worse is prohibition. Prohibiting alcohol made it even worse by handing it over to violent criminal cartels and unregulated amateur producers.
Cannabis, on the other hand, has so many benefits medically, industrially, nutritionally, environmentally, recreationally, and spiritually that it’s hard to call it harmful…unless you’re a prohibitionist.
Prohibitionists need prohibition to make marijuana harmful. The prohibitionist’s job is to create harm where there is very little, or to make something that’s already harmful even more harmful. They’re doing a great job!
Prohibition is a self forfilling prophecy. Everything they say they can make true, if it is or is not is of no importance. Prohibition provides income for countless individuals, it provides political fodder on both sides. As long as there is prohibition there is some job security on both sides of the fence.
sad but true.
I have witnessed Englands drinking problem first hand. It is quite interesting.
I was over there for a concert last May. After the concert, I boarded a double decker bus bound for my hotel near Heathrow.
None of the people on that bus had come from the concert, but EVERY one was FALLING DOWN DRUNK. EVERYONE!!! (except me, of course. I has some hash from Amsterdam).
Anyway, these people were actually decending the steps from the top level and falling all the way down to the bottom. Now get this: EVERY drunk was happy, laughing their arses off. EVERYONE. And, it was quite clear that they take drunk driving quite seriously as evident by all the drunks on the bus, and yet I witnessed not one drunk driver or alcohol related accident. Can’t say I was in a position to search for them though.
My point is this: Americans do not handle alcohol well AT ALL. At least not compared to the British.
The way the UK is heading they are going to implement the death penalty for weed and give out free booze to all.
Enjoy yourselves! Take that useless Canada with you too.
The reason the UK now has a huge problem with alcohol was initially down to the government, increasing opening hours for public houses (bars) and taking away the retail restrictions. This was done a few years ago. Being that now there can be anything up to 10 to 15 bars/nightclubs in any town centre there is a lot of competition. Cheap booze is everywhere now over here. Brewers have developed what are called “alchopops” (don’t know if you have them in the US), mainly vodka or bacardi mixers, brightly coloured liquids in small bottles that attract the child market and consequently we now have a massive problem with 12/13 year old alcoholics.
I believe this deregulation happened:
1: To increase the revenue to government through high taxes…and
2: To create a society that is so chaotic the government has to introduce heavy measures to control us…ie increased CCTV cameras, more draconian laws.
It has helped to set the legalisation of cannabis back years as the public (helped by the media and government) sees the problems excess drinking has done and applies the same logic to cannabis.
There are a lot of people over here in the UK who are fighting for more restriction on alcohol, to get us back to where we were 10 years ago. Perhaps then we will see a more sensible approach to cannabis as well.
From a concerned cannabis user in the booze soaked UK
For anyone that wants to help fight prohibition even more.
http://www.citizensopposingprohibition.org/blog-home
This is Howard Wooldridge’s new site. If your not familiar with him, hes the one who rode his horse cross country to bring attention to drug reform…Former member of LEAP.
I think some of the commentors above get it. I memorized Bradson’s line, “Prohibitionists need prohibition to make marijuana harmful. Chris mentions the “prohibitionist argument that alcohol and tobacco are a burden to health costs so why make another substance legal”– this undergirds my persuasion that it is important to start right now with a frontal attack on the true mega-enemy, the hot-burning-overdose genocide $igarette industry. 1. Big 2Wackgo likes the binge-drinking epidemic because it helps get kids hooked on nicotine– a. they turn to it to self-medicate away a hangover; b. after days of cognitive malfunction and a school test approaching, they try nicotine as a “stay-awake performance enhancing drug” for last-night cramming. 2. Big pHARMa makes mega-bucks off blood-pressure medicines etc. which long-term $igarette addicts must buy for the rest of their shortened life. 3. H. M. Govt. is hooked on the $ig (& liquor) taxes, see above. Needed: a frontal attack proposing (a) cannabis to substitute for those toxic life-destroying drugs and (b) vaporizer, THC-loaded e-cigarette (as soon as available– research urgently needed), and/or long-stemmed one-hitter to substitute for 700-mg. commercial overdose.
to see alcohol as a problem is an ignorant look on the drug. Alcohol, like marijuana, is not a problem. The problem is that people over use the substance in a society that is moving more towards excess rather than to just feel your buzz and keep your mental fortitude. I assumed this was mostly an American ideal but apparently it is more of a world problem. To look at any substance that is considered a drug used widely used for recreational uses, prescription medication, marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and say that the drug is the problem is preposterous and overlooks the fact that it is the people who abuse the substance and not the substance in its self.
To conclude this comment I will say this. Marijuana should be legalized, taxed and regulated or at the very least have a massively large government testing on the substance that is available for the public to view, like a tv show. This is a compromise to the federal government of America. But as a good doctor at the university of Massachusetts would tell you it would take a lifetime to get that ability
cocaine and prescriptions should not be legal due to the use of cocaine to make crack and the low levels of prescription medicines the human body can take. 10 milligrams of alprazolam can kill a person, thats roughly 20 doses
Leave a Comment
Note: MPP respects freedom of expression, but any posts deemed inappropriate will be removed. This includes advocating violence or explicit criminal acts, or any statements deemed derogatory or offensive based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Please be respectful to others.