{"id":1285,"date":"2008-04-22T19:51:20","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T00:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1285"},"modified":"2008-04-22T19:51:20","modified_gmt":"2008-04-23T00:51:20","slug":"the-danger-of-passive-drinking-waitwhat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/1285","title":{"rendered":"The Danger Of Passive Drinking… Wait…What…?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw the headlines passing through my news readers regarding "passive drinking" this morning and I took it to mean some kind of social drinking situation where people who aren’t really drinkers and don’t much like alcohol drink anyway for the sake of socializing and fitting in.  But…no.  Via Dan Savage over at SLOG…<\/p>\n

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First They Came for the Smokers…<\/h3>\n
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…and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a smoker blah blah blah.<\/p>\n

Actually, the Stranger<\/em> did speak up: We urged a “no” vote on Washington state’s smoking ban because of its unenforceable (and largely unenforced) 25ft rule. We did, however, endorse the concept<\/em> of a smoking ban. It was a perfect Stranger<\/em> position on a controversial issue: We managed to piss off everybody<\/em>. Anti-smoking crusaders were furious that we urged a “no” vote and smokers were furious that we endorsed the concept. Yahtzee!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, anyway, just as some outraged nicotine addicts predicted in our comments threads… now they’re coming for the drinkers<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The campaigns to combat the effects of “passive smoking” are widely credited for Europe’s growing number of smoking bans. Now alcohol is in the sights of the public health lobbyists, and they have invented the concept of “passive drinking” as their killer argument.<\/p>\n

I have seen a leaked draft report for the European Commission, which is due to be published some time in June. It makes claims about the high environmental or social toll of alcohol, the “harm done by someone else’s drinking.” The report is likely to inform proposals for a European Union alcohol strategy later this year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Uh-oh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Er…haven’t we already been down this road once…?<\/p>\n

  
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Well…"passive drinking" does have a more scientific sound to it then DEMON RUM…<\/p>\n

You have to reckon the object is, as for tobacco, to ban the product without actually…you know…banning it.  Because a ban would be unenforceable and create more crime and cost the America billions in wasted money and wasted lives, whereas simply making it illegal to use the product anywhere won’t be a ban as such and won’t cause any of the horrific social problems that the war on drugs certainly has not caused…or that Prohibition never caused…<\/p>\n

  
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In the meantime I’m going to engage in a little passive resistance and go out for a smoke and then come back home and pour myself some Kahlua…  Burn in hell Carrie…\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw the headlines passing through my news readers regarding "passive drinking" this morning and I took it to mean some kind of social drinking situation where people who aren’t really drinkers and don’t much like alcohol drink anyway for the sake of socializing and fitting in.  But…no.  Via Dan Savage over at SLOG… First […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-jackass-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}