Drunk Pill

Saturday 14 January 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized

Mother Nature Network on a pill being devised from a traditional Chinese medicinal ingredient which would drastically reduce the level of alcohol intoxication within minutes of taking it:

It’s certainly easy to imagine how such a drug could be abused. Drinkers could become intoxicated, then take a pill when it comes time to drive themselves home. Hangovers would also no longer be a deterrent to imbibing.

How are either of these situations be construed as a bad thing (abusing the drug). It would seem that, if the pill is legit and can actually eliminate intoxication, this would be a good thing in avoiding things like drunken driving. The idea that being able to greatly reduce these negative effects of drinking is a bad thing can ONLY come from the mindset that it is not the driving drunk or the epic hangover that is bad, but the getting drunk in the first place. To these people, it is not the externalities of drinking that are bad, but drinking itself.

But it gets worse. Not only do they see taking a pill like this to rid one of a hangover as inherently bad, but that the ONLY good that can come from this sort of scientific advance is to help rid individuals of the urge to drink at all.

But for those struggling to overcome an alcohol addiction — not to mention the 2.5 million people who are estimated to die every year due to alcoholism — the drug could be a godsend and well worth the risks.

The ONLY redeeming factor of this kind of technology for these kinds of people is that every possible outcome of this pill, despite those outcomes being overwhelmingly positive, is bad EXCEPT for its ability to help people STOP drinking. In what fucking world is greatly reducing drunken driving a “risk” that should be suffered?

These people ought to be ignored and marginalized at all costs.

2012-01-14  »  madlibertarianguy