Alcohol should be banned

[Br8inend]

As always though, he was a heavy smoker before he became anti

 

people don't realise that drinking is british culture, like it or not. We have a right to protect our cultural heritage . Banning smoking and pricing people out of pubs and clubs is against our human rights.

[Halibut]

I am grateful to be living in a society forged by the scientific and social advances of the post-enlightenment Western world. I will always defend the ideas that we should be reasonable, accept pluralism, respect human rights, defend the rule of law, and apply the findings of science to the improvement of mankind. Based on this banning alcohol is a bad idea.

 

On a personal level, I can think of nothing better than holding a nice glass of Rioja in my hand. Based on this, banning alcohol is not just a bad idea, it’s a repulsive one that would restrict my personal freedom to do something that I enjoy.

 

What is more interesting perhaps, when we hear people call to restrict others freedoms, is what this says about these people themselves.

 

I am reminded about something Stephen Fry said when talking about the Catholic church's obsession with sex, he said that sex is like food. "The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese. And that, in erotic terms, is the Catholic church."

 

Sex, food, and alcohol are all healthy pleasures that add to our happy existence but can be dangerous if taken in excess. Abstaining from these things is just as obsessive as addiction, and demanding that other people’s pleasures should be restricted or banned is simply miserable

 

Excellent post Milquetoast.

[Halibut]

Ok one very good reason for not banning it:

 

As the most-taken drug in this country, if it were to be banned it would provide the largest expansion of organised crime this country has ever seen.

 

Dragon - how do you respond to this point made by auto98uk?

[xenia]

I feel sorry for people who dont drink. They get up in the morning and thats the as good as they feel all day.

[xenia]

ALSO, we of the indigenous population are of Celtic Saxon stock with a little Viking thrown in. We drink alchohol. When we drink, we dream, read Beowulf and tell me the author wasnt ******.

[Halibut]

You've got my vote.

 

Don't know many people who smoke cannabis who feel like going out and beating people up, or urinate and vomit over everyone and everything, or so on. These are all very much linked with my experiences of those who drink alcohol - but I have lived a very sheltered life so who knows?

 

I'm like one of those annoying people who give up smoking and then preach about it. I gave up alcohol and ... oh my god(dess) - I've turned into one of them. Need a lobotomy immediately - now where did I put that DIY book?

 

So, let me see if I'm reading you correctly - you accept Phan's point that the desire to alter consciousness is right up there with desires for shelter, food, warmth and sex - and yet you think it legitimate to try and curtail peoples right to consume a legal and massively popular mind altering substance. By your own admission you've had a sheltered life, but you go on to say that in the main your experience of alcohol suggests that it leads to fights, vomiting, urinating in the street and so on.

Of course, everyone knows that these can be side effects of excess booze, but I think you'll find that it's still the case that for more drinkers than not it's a highly pleasurable recreation which doesn't lead to serious harm.

Another thing; that tricky point by auto98uk. Ban it and you create the biggest ever opportunity for criminals to make obscene amounts of money and hence a huge amount of power and influence. Not a wise move.

[DragonofAna]

Dragon - how do you respond to this point made by auto98uk?

 

It is something we will never learn isn't it. If we enter the realms of fiction then there is no saying how difficult it would be to enforce a ban. Take the alcohol out of shops and pubs and that's most of the avenues for underage drinkers gone out the window.

 

I feel sorry for people who dont drink. They get up in the morning and thats the as good as they feel all day.

 

I possibly feel much better when I get up in a morning to how you feel after your first sniff of alcohol. But hey ho - some of us don't need alcohol in order to live.

[DragonofAna]

ALSO, we of the indigenous population are of Celtic Saxon stock with a little Viking thrown in. We drink alchohol. When we drink, we dream, read Beowulf and tell me the author wasnt ******.

 

All this talk of celts as if they were actually a race creases me up. Keep going cos we have been through all this so many times on sf.

[DragonofAna]

So, let me see if I'm reading you correctly - you accept Phan's point that the desire to alter consciousness is right up there with desires for shelter, food, warmth and sex - and yet you think it legitimate to try and curtail peoples right to consume a legal and massively popular mind altering substance. By your own admission you've had a sheltered life, but you go on to say that in the main your experience of alcohol suggests that it leads to fights, vomiting, urinating in the street and so on.

Of course, everyone knows that these can be side effects of excess booze, but I think you'll find that it's still the case that for more drinkers than not it's a highly pleasurable recreation which doesn't lead to serious harm.

Another thing; that tricky point by auto98uk. Ban it and you create the biggest ever opportunity for criminals to make obscene amounts of money and hence a huge amount of power and influence. Not a wise move.

 

Do you ever stop to think and let a person answer one question you have asked them before piling in and asking a dozen more? I wonder if I will get this response posted before your next set of questions needs answering?

 

With Phans post I was referring to the sex - but hey ho!

 

Why do you think people NEED alcohol? Something people Cannot go without? That they would break the law to get, and someone mentioned civil war. Seems a very controlling drug if people will go to such extremes. Why alcohol of all drugs?

[Halibut]

It is something we will never learn isn't it. If we enter the realms of fiction then there is no saying how difficult it would be to enforce a ban. Take the alcohol out of shops and pubs and that's most of the avenues for underage drinkers gone out the window.

 

We can make sensible predictions based on what we know about British society and what we know about other countries which have tried to ban alcohol.

I, for one would quite happily break the law if alcohol were banned as would most of the drinkers I know from all strata of society.

 

I possibly feel much better when I get up in a morning to how you feel after your first sniff of alcohol. But hey ho - some of us don't need alcohol in order to live.

 

No-one with the possible exception of those who are helplessly addicted needs alcohol to live. But for millions and millions of people it's a drug that greatly enhances their lives. If you don't touch it, fine, but that doesn't give you or anyone else the right to tell me what I can put into my own body.