Edward Slingerland argues intoxication sparked innovation and civilization throughout human history.
Caution with cheer
CBC Tapestry host Mary Hynes cites a big study published in 2018, in the medical journal, The Lancet, and the immortal line, "our results show that the safest level of drinking is none.”
I think that the medical literature and the public policy regarding alcohol is deeply misguided. And I think it's misguided because they're not taking into account any of the social functions of alcohol. So The Lancet's article is basically treating alcohol consumption as a purely medical issue. No doubt they have a lot of evidence. This is a well-researched piece. Overall, it's negative physiologically, but you've got to weigh against the fact that it's doing all these positive functions: it's ramping up creativity, it's helping people cooperate, it's helping people relax at the end of the day, it's helping people overcome intimacy problems. It's got all these functions in society, and I think our public discussions about alcohol have been really impoverished. It may be the case that once you take into account all those functions, you still say no — you know, the costs are too high. And as I say at the end of the book, that's a perfectly reasonable position to take, but you need to actually have all of the data.1
Ioanna Roumeliotis & Brenda Witmer of CBC News report that advocates of warning labels want Canadians to understand alcohol is one of top causes of preventable cancer.
"Even drinking one drink a day increases your risk of some cancers — including, if you're a woman, breast cancer — but also cancers of the digestive system, the mouth, stomach," said Tim Stockwell, a senior scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria. "The risk increases with every drink you take." Alcohol has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen (carcinogenic to humans) for decades by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). It's right up there with tobacco and asbestos. Alcohol is also a top cause of preventable cancer after smoking and obesity.2
In the last century, the social acceptance of smoking was eventually overcome by an understanding of the serious consequences to health and life of this behaviour. Warning labels on alcohol may begin a transition to more responsible use of this drug that increases social interaction and the risk of developing serious disease.
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