Social costs alcohol

An estimated 100,000 U.S. citizens die each year because of alcohol-related causes, including traffic cohisions and cirrhosis of the liver. Direct and indirect health and social costs of alcoholism to the nation are estimated to be 180 bihion annuahy. ... 

Social and economic harms Some invasions of privacy or breaches of confidentiality could result in embarrassment with one s business or social group, loss of employment, or criminal prosecution. Confidential safeguards must be strong in these instances. Examples of these particular sensitivities include information about alcohol or drug abuse, mental illness, illegal activities, and sexual behavior. Participation in research may also result in additional costs to the participant. 

There are major consequences of alcoholism, from child abuse to domestic or public violence to traffic accidents and from cirrhosis to hypertension. Mean life expectancy of alcohol abusers is around 55 years. Alcohol seems involved in several hundred thousand deaths each year in Europe, with considerable added social and health care costs. This is in clear contrast with the little attention paid to the treatment of alcohol dependence and abuse. It is important to note that there is an increasing knowledge of similar effects on driving etc. from other psychoactive substances, particularly from the seda-tive/tranquillizer drugs and antihistamines. 

People who continue to drink alcohol in spite of adverse medical or social consequences related directly to their alcohol consumption suffer from alcoholism, a complex disorder that appears to have genetic as well as environmental determinants. The societal and medical costs of alcohol abuse are staggering. It is estimated that about 30% of all people admitted to hospitals have coexisting alcohol problems. Once in the hospital, people with chronic alcoholism generally have poorer outcomes. In addition, each year thousands of children are born in the USA with morphologic and functional defects resulting from prenatal exposure to ethanol. Despite the investment of many resources and much basic research, alcoholism remains a common chronic disease that is difficult to treat. 

The use of alcohol (ethanol) prepared from the fermentation of sugars, starches and other carbohydrates dates back to the beginning of recorded history. Alcohol is the most important drug of dependence in all industrialized countries, and the clinical and social problems that arise from its widespread abuse are legion. In the US, the total annual economic cost of alcoholism and its related disorders has been estimated to be approximately 80 billion, and this does not take into account the human cost, which is impossible to quantify. It has been calculated that the lifetime... 

This section on the chronic effects of heavy alcohol consumption has highlighted the idea of alcohol as a double-edged sword. On the one side, as we showed you in Chapter 1, the economic costs of alcohol abuse to the United States are tremendous and come from many sources. The cftects of chronic, heavy alcohol use on the body result in major health care expenses. Furthermore, if you consider some of the social consequences that contribute to the costs, they may become even more real to you. We already discussed how alcohol is implicated... 

Alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine are considered by most to be socially acceptable drugs, yet they impose an enormous social and economic cost on our society. More than 440,000 deaths each year are attributable to tobacco use, making tobacco the number one preventable cause of death and disease in this country. Smoking is responsible for 85% of all lung cancer deaths, approximately 80% of aU chronic obstructive pulmonary disease deaths, and 30% of overall health disease deaths. ... 

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