this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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[–] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 37 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ban all advertising for alcohol, too, please

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You! This woman! Sex! You in a tuxedo fucking this woman!

[–] beuvons@thelemmy.club 7 points 2 weeks ago

Drunk as fuck!

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

There hasn't been an ad for alcohol on US TV for decades and this had no effect, other than saving alcohol industries for wasting money competing with each other in that area.

[–] CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What? They can't drink in ads they absolutely still advertise alcohol on television. Its also on a ton of billboards.

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Are we speaking of the US, can you show us a clip from US tv advertising whiskey gin even wine? What I am saying is that it had 0 effect on alcoholism

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

You know we've been talking about the US the entire time. You earlier in this same thread:

There hasn’t been an ad for alcohol on US TV for decades

Idk what future you're from, but these have all been within very recent decades:
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=alcohol+advertisements+on+tv+2024

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[–] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Australian sports fields are covered in alcohol logos So the entire time you are watching football with your children, they are exposed

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

What is the legal drinking age in Aus? When the Kuwait war started there were kids sent to fight in an unheard land before, and they did and some came back and still couldn't drink legally in the US. You can drive at 16, on a mandatory draft you could be drafted as young as 16, but you have to be 21 to drink and 18 to buy cigarettes. You can sell crack and crystal-meth on the streets, illegal weapons, flesh, easy when you are 15, but you have to pay a homeless drunk to buy you wine or a pack of Camels.

That is your free market hypocrisy at work.

How else can I explain it, there are millions of children dying because of food and water shortages, but WHO thinks alcohol labels will benefit peoples' health ...
Somebody get us some rope ...

[–] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I agree that there are much bigger problems, but those bigger problems have solutions that are not allowed under capitalism and USA imperialism, so labels is all we're allowed to fix 🤷

The legal drinking age in Australia is 18 years old, and it has always struck me as odd that it's so high in the USA

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[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe work on making life less shitty so people don't drink more?

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Anthopology has provided clear evidence, in all times, in all tribes and continents, the percentage of people that will abuse substances that affect the mind has been steady, and there is nothing anyone can do about it, they will find the substance in the wilderness if it is not in the market.

Alternatively both politically and economically certain entities will use this weakness to control and manipulate people, either by promoting one, or by criminalizing another. Miami became big and important during prohibition because politicians would travel down there to drink and ... whatever else they needed. Bootlegging lasted twice or more after prohibition was reverted, mostly because industrial production wasn't there to cover the need/market.

Opium smoking was common in Europe among the elites all the way to early 20th century. The poor just smoked cheaper stuff.

The WHO are hypocrites than need to hang high and dry

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[–] sunglocto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 weeks ago

We should be actively warning about and discouraging the consumption of demerit goods. Alcohol, cigarettes, vapes, SSBs, ultra processed food all completely destroy the health of communities all around the world. Not just in the States, but also in both developed and developing countries. We've seen study after study after study that these do nothing but make us addicted to slop that shortens our lifespan and makes us unhappy.

But the organization that is offering this advice cannot even act in the 3rd largest country in the world by population because of """misinformation""" from covid.

WHO basically fully prevented the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, and it did not affect my parents. If WHO didn't act, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. To think that people genuinely think that leaving it is good goes against every line of thinking I have used in my entire life.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Got nuts, but if you're worried about people drinking to much work on making it easier to get by as working class. The shorter lifespan is just less getting crushed by the weight of my living expenses.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Surely shaming people and making them feel bad for their choices will work this time, not just cause more animosity in the world. People with drinking problems usually do so to escape something, to bad we can fix those underlying issues.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 15 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Can we do all petroleum products too?

this product is causing mass extinction of an estimated X thousand species

[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You don't have a choice on the matter, so why waste bandwidth with empty proposals? Consumer tendencies and ideology is an illusion to keep movements away from threatening economic interests of the industrial/banking world. Change can never come from consumer modification.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 3 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Of course we do. See Big Tobacco.

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[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yes please. It will kill a lot more people than cigarettes or alcohol.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Isn't this already common knowledge? No one is drinking alcohol because they think it's good for you.

People: drink alcohol to help them survive being exploited under capitalism

WHO: "best I can do is tell you that you're going to die sooner"

Also, I don't know if anyone's researched this, but I'm 99% sure the stress chemicals your body generates from being a wage slave and living paycheck to paycheck your entire life are far more carcinogenic than alcohol. Maybe that should come with a label too.

[–] sebb@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

The facts are alcohol doesn't help anyone to survive shit. We know that it's the opposite, it makes life of people that consume it more miserable.

It instead accumulates together with the stress you experience within your life. It adds more stress, not removes it. Cancer is just one thing, but alcohol is very disrupting to your endocrine (hormones) system, mental health.

What you're doing is a form of denialism. That denialism comes precisely from what those labels are addressing. You're being constantly exposed to the image of alcohol as something to enjoy, a pleasure, relief. It's constantly reinforced by movies, TV shows, media, advertisements.

It's not about knowledge. It's about exposure. If you're constantly exposed to an image of alcohol as a positive thing in your life then you will deny it's impact despite the facts, science, and knowledge

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

The facts are alcohol doesn’t help anyone to survive shit

Hard disagree... I did it just last night.

Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic.

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[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago

There were a bunch of lies published by alcohol industry-backed groups about how a glass of red wine is good for your heart and shit. It probably would be helpful to bust those shitty myths.

[–] penquin@lemmy.kde.social 7 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Labels need to be on all food, too, in the US of A. All of our food is cancerous.

[–] Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

California tried that with their prop 65 warnings on everything and it just made people ignore all the label warnings instead.

So no, we should only target the worst offenders.

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[–] sebb@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago

Wow! Finally! 🎉🎉 It's astonishing that it took so many decades. We knew, we always knew that alcohol causes cancer. Now we also know that the risk is significant from any amount. And of course, it's not just cancer.

Those labels, they really work. Like, the society to big extend quit smoking thanks to those labels.

Policies curbing smoking weren't popular at the time, people criticized them for being too much of an inconvenience and ineffective at the same time. But they really worked and our society became better and healthier because of them. Funny, how watching the debate about alcohol now, reading people's comment here, you can actually relive this experience now just years later. When people say "they should focus on X instead", and things like that, that's a form of denialism

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Please no. Some of the bottles are so good looking. The cigarette warning are disgusting.

[–] dmention7@lemm.ee 9 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I think a good compromise would be a simple overwrap or removable label that can be removed after purchase.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago

That’s a great idea. Give me a nasty label I can remove. Makes its point but I can still have my pretty bar. I agree it should be made clear but those who can luckily control themselves don’t deserve to be punished.

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[–] Hirom 7 points 2 weeks ago

That's the whole point.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I agree that those are way over the top but attractive packaging for selling drugs is just not ok. And i say this as an enjoyer. Responsible use is common and normal human behavior.

Completely neutral package with a clear label of for informed, responsible, adult use is just sensible.

But i want to stretch that the image it is sold as does not mean that should be the final look. There is a lot of potential creativity left to make something safe to put on a shelf or site but is in hand still classy for the user to enjoy. After all, the good vibes of aesthetics on the table are not nearly as bad as those from the drug itself, while taking that away actually puts more emphasis in that purely chemical high.

If we go to far we with with neutralizing we could end deciding that flavors make drugs appealing (flavored cigarettes are actually band in places) but for liquor that can backfire to reducing everything to wodka.

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[–] Majestic@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The thing is. Alcohol can be used in for example cooking. Cigarettes have no good purpose, nothing you can really do with them that has utility outside of direct consumption that exposes you to the full health risks.

And at that point I fear you're also diminishing the unique harm and danger of cigarettes which produce second hand smoke which exposes others, including kids to health dangers without their consent.

How about we slay the first demon here before starting to equate another lesser one with it? Most people do not have a risk of getting addicted to alcohol, nearly everyone has a risk with a few tries of getting addicted to nicotine and it's spreading like a plague among children with candy and sweets flavored cartridges for the poison that is e-cigs. This undoing a generation of progress.

It really does risk making more people dismissing the unique dangers and threat of nicotine and smoke products by equating the two and risks creating a DARE moment where the whole thing is just mocked by rising anti-science, anti-expert sentiment spurred on by capitalists eager to undo regulations. I mean things like this are catnip to people like RFK who want to torpedo evidence based science in favor of vibes and snake oil because it presents an in with your average person to criticize the health establishment over at least misplaced priorities.

Drinking on its own is a danger to the drinker. Only when done to excess does it endanger others. Smoking at all produces second-hand smoke and can encourage others to join an addictive behavior that is very, very hard to quit and will be a monkey on their back for years, decades after they stop whereas MOST humans can stop drinking alcohol with less ill effects than stopping daily consumption of caffeine.

Any amount of alcohol is a carcinogen and unhealthy, but at the same time we have to ask what level of risk is okay. Any amount of charred food cooked on charcoal is also a health risk for instance and can lead to exposure to carcinogens. The unique problems of cigarettes and nicotine were always impacts to others who didn't make that choice including children trapped with smoker parents as well as the addictive properties which left most users trapped or facing a hard fight to stop as well as bad behaviors by industry to hook people while they were young and down. Yes the alcohol industry also tries to get teens and young people to drink but nearly all of them can just stop after they leave college and go on to have a healthy life with zero or limited interactions with alcohol, you cannot say the same for someone who starts using nicotine and uses it heavily for even 6 months.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 weeks ago

It's a label change... you can still use it in your cooking.

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

What I've learned over the past five years is that you have to be very careful with this kind of mandate, or it will make people despise and doubt your whole organization. I actually think that this kind of warning label will increase the amount of cancer people get, because they'll start smoking cigarettes again, which are much worse.

Edit: To clarify, the reason people would start smoking cigarettes is not because it's an alternative to alcohol; it's because they would lose faith in health and safety warnings altogether. It's stupid, but people are stupid.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

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.

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[–] iriyan@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Is there a way to trace big-pharma money to WHO decision makers? Have there been any reports on discovering such "flow"?

Isn't it obvious that all "medical advise" on addictive legal substances is pressure on a huge market to shift to psychotropic medication for which profitability is 100s of times more controllable?

The more they squeeze the population (nearly 30%) away from cigs, alcohol, and street drugs, the more they gain in anti-depressants. And there seems no effort what so ever to squeeze the street drug addict population away from anything, seriously!

The WHO just wants a piece of the pie, and the more they act like this the more likely you will see the US becoming best friends with WHO elite again. So the blackmail worked!

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