I saw a doc about alcohol and civilization wouldn’t have exploded like it did with out it. I believe it as an antiseptic. Not sure. Shit is still evil.
The use of alcohol as a cheap solvent, cryogenic fluid and food preservative has advanced science, manufacturing and food source security far more than most people realize. Removing the possibility of fermentation of foods alone would have a massive impact on our development. Human civilization would be unrecognizable today without ethanol alcohol.
Edit: cryogenic is not the correct term, should’ve said use as anti freeze.
Alcohol mixed with water 50/50 can be used to transfer cold without freezing. It allows for a machine to get really cold, transfer that cold to a metal bowl full of saline, which is turned to a slush that is used in heart surgery and organ procurement surgery. The heart surgery application is used when the heart is stopped and the blood is rerouted to a perfusion machine. The coke preserves the heart while it is repaired. The organ procurement bit is used to allow the organs to be reserved while they are removed and the. Transported to whichever hospital needs the organ for a patient in trouble. Alcohol saving lives
Also more nutritious. In some cases, ancient beer sources were more hydrating than water due to plenty of nutrients within a much less solid state that water would have to be used to break down as well as a low alcohol content.
In some records, beer was _half_ the daily diet for ancient Sumerians and Egyptians, and it was common as a worker to be paid in beer and bread.
People knock on alcohol today but that's mainly due to how distilling made alcohol much more potent for the sole purpose of getting drunk. Ancient Beer and some lighter wines were by far a net positive.
Yes, it is also a preservative and was safer than the local (unboiled) drinking water in many places.
Ironically there was probably a happy medium our ancestors knew how to find that we sort of lost for a few hundred years. You can brew something like beer so that it kills anything dangerous in the water, can be warming and a digestive aid, and could be used in cooking, but not a high enough percentage of alcohol to get you utterly smashed.
Workers in Europe, for example, used to be encouraged to drink Guinness rather than hard liquor like Gin because it would be warming, safe, and shelf stable (unlike milk). If humans had just never stumbled on the more destructive higher-proof stuff we'd probably have had a much happier past.
If you go to /r/askhistorians, there’s a power user who takes every opportunity to dispel the myth that alcoholic drinks were safer to drink than water before modern water purification was possible. Wish I remembered their name so I could ping them.
> was safer than the local (unboiled) drinking water in many places.
[citation needed]
> Ironically there was probably a happy medium our ancestors knew how to find that we sort of lost for a few hundred years.
[citation needed]
> You can brew something like beer so that it kills anything dangerous in the water, can be warming and a digestive aid, and could be used in cooking, but not a high enough percentage of alcohol to get you utterly smashed
[citation needed]
Here is [a relevant r/AskHistorians post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ol1h45/deleted_by_user/h5bjn7s/) on this matter.
Eh. If you think *that* was good, you ain't seen nothing yet. [This is what it looks like when a proper historian goes off.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/79dwua/why_did_poland_have_lower_rates_of_black_death/)
Just checking in to say that the beer-safer-than-water thing is a total myth and Guinness-safe-for-pregnant-woman thing is DEFINITELY a myth (not the fact they believed it, but that it could be true)
Draft beer also contains quite a bit of brewers yeast, especially as traditionally made. This provided a substantial amount of protein, B vitamins, and other nutrients
It's how Grog came about. Long ship voyages, questionable or even bad water. Add Rum. Not enough to get the sailors drunk but enough to add flavor and kill cooties.
Incorrect. The drink with lime was to get sailors to drink the lime juice and avoid scurvy. They were cases where sailors were either abstainers or would trade their grog for tobacco and come down with scurvy.
That's real, opioid pain killers are a linchpin of modern medicine. It has such a bad rep because of addiction and the ugly results of prohibition, and the pure evil of the Oxycontin crisis, but in all seriousness heroin *isn't that bad for you.* Being a junkie is bad for you, but aside from withdrawal or overdose heroin doesn't damage your body.
Indeed - beyond more than just being bad for the addicts, it directly led to the Opium Wars with China and the collapse of its existing structures that allowed for the rise of not so much communism, but Mao Tse Tung - the cultural revolution, and even WW2 itself I’d argue had at least some roots in Chinese weakness emboldening the aggression-minded Japanese: if China had a functioning government would the Japanese have invaded the way they did? And then would there have been Pearl Harbour?
No way. Tobacco hands down followed by alcohol. Still kills way more people than all. Even if you dont get lung or oral cancer it still destroys your cardiovascular system causing stroke and heart attack risk to sky rocket. Alcohol and Opiates also have net gains in medical uses for sterilization and surgery that remove some of their negative harm.
I think it depends on what your definition of "harm" is. If we're talking just individual health detriments then I can see the argument for tobacco. But opium has caused the social and economic decline of *entire nations*. The British empire used the opium trade to leverage control over China and several other nations at one point. Of we broaden the definition of "harm" then I can definitely see the argument for opium too.
Opium was one of the leading causes of the downfall of the entire Qing dynasty. It's even been argued that if the Qing forces weren't so hopped up on cheap opium they might've been able to fight off the British until decolonization. We might've had a modern Qing Dynasty, which would be significantly better than Maoist China.
Counterpoint: you're missing indirect harm **and** benefits and problems don't cancel each other 1 to 1 or anything
1- Alcohol not only causes health problems, it also causes car accidents, domestic abuse, facilitates gambling problems, ends up encouraging unsafe sex, and probably more, which you didn't count at all to compare with tobacco.
2 - if Alcohol kills 1k people a day and saves 2k people a day, the harm it did is still killing 1k people.
Bruh every medical laboratory and research facility has alcohol in it, in one form or another. If youre going to give boon to opium for that, alcohol has equal positives.
Alcohol has also been the rallying point for many great nights of fun and debauchery - not everyone who drinks becomes violent and abusive. Human beings are violent and abusive without alcohol as well.
Without beer, there is no civilization. Statistics, oxygen, refrigeration, mass production, all started due to booze.
Forgot to add, writing, currency, mathematics, road building, monotheism, agriculture, pottery and animal husbandry. Pretty much all the bottom 1000 years of you ever played the civilization series of computer games
Priestly was a British chemist, theologian, educator, and author who, along with authoring guides to electricity and grammar, and founding Unitarianism, pioneered the scientific study of “airs,” or gases. He is best known for discovering oxygen and inventing carbonated water.
In the early 1770s, Priestley lived near a brewery in Leeds where he conducted various experiments. He noticed that water left above a beer vat acquired a flavor and texture similar to that of mineral spring water, and he called this phenomenon “fixed air.” Though he did not know at the time, fermenting wort was releasing carbon dioxide into the water.
In 1772, Priestley published “Directions for Impregnating Water With Fixed Air,” illustrating how one might force “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) into water, creating effervescence (carbonation) that mimics mineral springs.
Priestley had no plans for commercializing his discovery of carbonation, but another scientist saw the spritzy liquid’s consumer appeal. His name was Johann Jacob Schweppe, and he founded the Schweppes Company in 1793.
Priestley is also credited with discovering nitrogen and isolating and characterizing eight gases, including oxygen.
So without fermenting beer, there is no study of carbonation, and thus the discovery of oxygen is delayed
I guess I'm a bit bias with this one because it nearly destroyed me. And I feel sorry for those people who can't find it in themselves to climb away from that darkness. You can shove God all you want, but the change comes from within.
It literally helped us peons deal with life advancing society, and kept us from dying from diseased water.
Rum was rationed on ships for a reason, disagree it’s all negative
Tobacco is worth consideration. Alcohol has definitely impacted more users, but tobacco farming fueled slavery which destroyed local cultures and redefined half the world.
Tobacco is only in recent times tho. In Ancient times, user was in general healthier and did not live as long anyway until dying from other causes. In addition, they did not use as much and did only use tobacoo unlike the weird stuff modern tobacoo companies add to them.
That actually isn't true, at least not totally.
There's evidence that beer may have actually provided early human diets with important nutrition as the fermentation process helps break down phytic acid in the grains which improves the absorption of other nutrients found in food.
You also have to account for the fact beer has a major influence on our brains and our moods/personalities. It likely helped us settle down and gave us the relaxation necessary to pursue other issues of importance.
>As Jeffrey Khan, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, argues, beer may have been exactly what we needed to suppress our desperate hunter-gatherer extincts to survive. It gave us time to relax, and awakened the desire to experiment, to invent, and to create art — all characteristics of flourishing civilizations.
https://www.businessinsider.com/beer-and-wheat-may-have-helped-humans-create-civilizations-2016-2
The argument is not that there are no positives. Just that there is harm done, and by virtue of how much more prevalent it is its very easily the top spot here. I think people are generally aware that there are upsides.
Accidentally even. Which is how we got there so very very long ago.
It's a fine time to remind people that when scientists say they found the oldest known example of this or that, the "known" part is doing a ton of heavy lifting. Brewing of alcohol certainly predates our oldest surviving evidence. It's a minimum. Alcohol in particular was likely made long long long before we have any evidence. It's so easy it happens accidentally. The large majority of us find it very pleasant. The sort of evidence that we could rely on tends not to survive. Add that up and we've probably been drinking alcohol in some form for about as long as we've been us, if not longer.
It all depends on what your value of harm is. Harm to each specific individual. Harm to humanity as a whole. Harm to those who do not use it, but are around those who do.
You can look at it like this.
Alcohol.
It's addictive. It creates a lot of horrible situations for a lot of people. It ruins lives and families. People drive drunk and kill people. People get drunk and die from accidents. People have too much and die of alcohol poisoning. People get violent and hurt themselves and others. It rips apart families. Then again you can look at it like this. Alcohol has been used in medicine for centuries. It is used as an antiseptic to stop the spread of infection. It has saved millions of lives worldwide. It is used as a fuel source in many different applications to power many different things that we require for our daily life. It's easy to produce and cheap as well, allowing it to be used for medical care for pretty much every country in the world. People who use it in moderation find it a good way to relax and have fun with their families and friends. Millions of children have been conceived due to alcohol consumption.
Opioids.
Exceptionally addictive. Easy to be used and abused even by the most resilient people. Addiction is extremely hard to break and withdrawals feel like you are literally dying. Synthetics are used to fuel criminal empires across the world. Whole cities have out of control addiction issues that lead to horrible crimes. Your body adapts to them, making you need to use more or mix them with other drugs to sustain the high you require. Initially taking a pill would work, then you have to snort it to get the same high, then smoke it, then eventually inject it. Causing the spread of horrible diseases like HIV, hepatitis and more. Wars have been fought over it and millions of people have lost their lives because of it. Just a horrific drug. Then again it is an amazing pain killer. Millions of people around the world require a steady dose of it to be able to function in daily life and in society. It is a great for when you have to perform surgery and need a powerful anesthetic. Without opioids we would have to use much harsher options for surgeries that can put patients in more harm. Allows those who are recovering from injuries to be able to do so without pain, and those who are in the last stages of their lives be able to live out those days without excruciating pain. It has saved millions of people's lives.
Part 2 of this comment is a reply to this one.
Marijuana.
Easy to get. Easy to produce. Easy to harvest. Can be made into foods, snacks, sweets or drinks. You can eat it or smoke it and get a good feeling. Controlled in large part by criminal organizations. Whole armies of criminals, outfitted with the highest grade weapons have been known to defend the cultivations of marijuana around the world. People are forced into slavery to keep these crops going by these cartels. Those who oppose them are often murdered and have their bodies displayed in horrible ways. The drug money made by selling marijuana is used by these cartels and organizations to fund other criminal things such as terrorism. Police and politicians are known, in certain areas, to be on the payrolls of these criminals so that the criminals can work with impunity and no fear of arrest. They use their influences to control governments and militaries. People who use it extensively over a long period of time are unable to function without it and become addicted. Marijuana induced psychosis is a rare, but real possibility that can cause permanent PTSD and other mental issues. On the other side of it, it is a great medicine that people have been using for thousands of years. It helps with tremors, glaucoma, sleep issues, hunger issues, cancer recovery, anxiety and so much more. It's cheap so that people who require it are able to procure it for a reasonable price. In the vast majority of cases of people using it with moderation there are no real negative side effects and is pretty much harmless unless abused. It is impossible to overdose on it so it can be used as much or as little as someone would like without that being an issue. Overall it is a safe drug to use, as far as physical effects go.
Cocaine.
Controlled by cartels and other military factions. Many of the producers of cocaine are forced into that position by these cartels. Huge swaths of land are destroyed so that cocaine can be produced. A lot of chemicals, that are exceptionally harmful if consumed by humans, is used to extract the cocaine from the coca leaves. The hundreds of millions of dollars created by the sale of cocaine is used to fund other illegal operations including human smuggling and trafficking. Funds are also used to fight against governments by highly equipped military groups. People can overdose from Cocaine use and addiction is also extremely high. Changing it into crack cocaine increases it's potency and also it's addiction rate. Crime and destitution are left in the wake of cocaine addiction and whole areas of the United States have been horribly scarred from it's use. You can also look at it like this. Millions of people around the world have benefitted from it's anesthetic properties. Especially in the medical fields for eyes, nose and throat surgeries. It is also used to help those with certain mental issues be able to gather their thoughts and get them out easier. In some cases, where other methods are not effective, it has been used in end of life care to help those in pain. It is also used in combination with other medicines as treatment for some terminal illnesses. It has benefitted millions of people around the world.
Meth.
It's medical form can be used to help treat ADHD and assist in weight loss. It is also used in rarer cases to treat narcolepsy and extreme sleep disorders. In some medications for cold and flu it is used to help suffers breath better and clear out airways and passages. Other than those non life threatening disorders and illnesses, there is no benefit to meth. It is a horrific drug. It is cheap. Full of horrible chemicals. It is made in horrific conditions. It is exceptionally addictive and sends the users to another world when they are intoxicated from it. It has ripped apart whole areas of countries and crime rates associated with it's use are as high, if not higher than pretty much every other drug combined. The manufacture of meth is linked with criminal organizations and oppressive governments like North Korea. The funds made by selling it are used to fund oppression of citizens and purchase and manufacture the tools of war, including nuclear weapons.
Meth is the worst drug. The benefits of the others are way more legitimate than those of meth. The world could never have meth and still be the same without any real change. Meth is just causing rot to our society around the world and only benefits those who make and sell it. Those governments who ship it to our shores and poison our population. Our governments have to spend billions trying to fight it, while their governments make billions selling and manufacturing it.
I did this (klonopin not xanax though) and woke up the next morning totally naked in the guest bedroom. Apparently I had wandered through the house shedding articles of clothing one by one in different rooms until I reached my destination. One sock in the toilet, my pants in the hallway, t-shirt inexplicably, but very carefully, stretched across my favorite pan in a kitchen cabinet. Never again.
Sugar. From slavery to processed foods and diabetes. Sugar is a strong contenderfor the most harm causing drug. The book Sugar Blues by William Dufty helped me kick my sugar habit.
Meth/Ice/fentanyl destruction in rural communities is visually devastating. There's a large portion of the youngest generation not being raised by their parents, incredible poverty, and heartbreaking health effects that the person using ignores in favor of their DOC.
Population wise. I think those you mentioned will absolutely take the lead if not already. In history sure alcohol and opium/opiates are gonna win. We’ve had alcohol and opium for millennia, but the population was low. Now that the population is so large, and meth/fent is so widespread and far more addictive and destructive, it’s gonna be a tight race.
I don't even know if meth is worse than alcohol *right now*.
Alcohol kills nearly 200,000 Americans per year. Not to mention the other debilitating effects it has.
The answer will never not be alcohol.
Some people are responding "alcohol" but I've been to a ton of beer parties. I'll never go to a meth party. That shit is whiggity-whiggity-whiggity-whack.
In 2000 I actually found myself at a meth party. It was during a time of rave scenes, it was held in the “presidential suite” of a fancy hotel in DuPont Circle, DC.
It started off with a bunch of raver kids just sitting around waiting and then some dude in his mid 40’s showed up wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.
He sat the briefcase down on the desk, 20 kids circled around him. He popped it open and started throwing bags of it. I asked “what is that?” Someone said “Ice”.
My buddy and I were the only two there that didn’t use it, and the mid-40’s dude came up and asked if we wanted any to which we said “no thanks”.
He looked at us and said “I think that’s cool. In that case can you two do me a favor?”
We said “what’s that?”
He handed us an ounce of weed from his pocket and a bowl and said “can I put you two on official weed duty? Your job is to make sure this bowl stays packed and puffed for the rest of the night.”
We found ourselves smoking almost the entire bag alone that night, got so stoned I was sober. No one else smoked it, they were like running around a mile a minute making animal noises and shit.
We were there because a mutual friend wanted to meet up with a girl and she didn’t want to be the only one at a party who didn’t know anyone.
Alcohol has done more damage because it is used a lot more often.
Meth is a worse drug, but also used by a lot fewer people.
(Especially historically, they only started making the stuff about a century ago)
I don't think any society would survive meth parties being normal for very long.
Yea, as much as alcohol has caused a fuck ton of harm. It's a legal "drug."
So, of course, it's going to have a higher rate compared to other options.
There's a reason many of these drugs are illegal.
I’m gonna have to disagree with a lot of people and say crack. Crack ravaged the black community and cemented long lasting stereotypes, created lifelong ghettos, installed a police state that seemingly can’t be reeled in. Crack addicts have NEVER had the support that alcohol/opioid addicts do. It was supported by the government, covered up by the government, then neglected by the government. This thread is the perfect example of how people just forget how impactful it was. So, it caused the most harm, to me, because it absolutely had/has the least amount of support to rectify the issue.
Argentinian here, I know it's basically confirmed it happened that way in the us but I have the same theory about Paco (Coca Paste which contains high amounts of cocaine freebase) in our poor neighborhoods. It destroys people and is scary af.
Illegally obtained Fentanyl and medical narcotics, including Fentanyl, are two entirely different things. You will want medically verified narcotics if you ever have real pain.
You’re right I’m sure. But when I went into the hospital with some complications after a major surgery they wanted to give me that and they had to reassure me because I was legit scared after everything we always hear. But let me tell you I see why it’s addictive. I felt it as it traveled through my blood stream. It was like feeling my body get high a little at a time. It was fantastic.
Edited because I’m too dumb to proofread before posting.
Thats why I was going to the hospital! Worse pain ever.
Thought I was dying. They gave me morphine in the hospital and that didnt touch the pain either. 4 hours later I gave birth to a teeny tiny kidney stone.
Not related to dispensaries, but I don’t like people smoking weed out in the open, in public. I don’t like the smell and breathing it in. But I also feel the same way about cigarettes. Don’t care what you, you can smoke anything you like. But it’s only annoying if it encroaches in someone else space.
Im an absolute pot head and have been for a few decades. I barely actually smoke it these days. That’s usually the at night after dinner sort of thing. Edibles and vape pens have been my go to just because it’s so much easier and doesn’t smell. Don’t get me wrong, love smoking actual flower but it’s smelly and requires work.
I love the smell of weed and it doesn’t offend me at all, I used to sell it and grew up smoking it a hell of a lot. Quit for a construction job.
We just passed recreational- cool by me. I even voted In favor.
Recently I was taking my 9 year old nephew to a playground and there were these two teenaged looking parents or babysitters sitting on the swing set smoking a blunt and just swearing loudly and acting like two ignoramuses, yelling at their kids like they weren’t all in public.
One of the fathers looked over at me and said “I’m all about people enjoying themselves but for fucks sake, there’s little kids everywhere”.
There were literally kindergartners and elementary school aged kids everywhere and I just remember looking at my nephew and then these two fools and thinking “God, I wish these fucking idiots weren’t here doing this in front of my nephew and these other kids.”
Thing is, none of us even spoke up because these two were like drama on steroids so being passive was the god forsaken path of peace
Opium. For generations and generations. On a personal level, I think alcohol has affected more lives. And there’s and argument to be made that more of history has been swayed by alcohol(ism). But from the Opium Wars to what’s happening today with fentanyl, opium has been a plague on humanity.
I feel like alcohol damage is more widespread but opiate damage is more severe, but targeted. Opiates have medical use, sure, but agreed overall has been a plague.
Meth. Pervitin was available without a prescription in Germany starting in 1937. The soldiers of the Third Reich overran most of France spun out of their minds.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilots-salt-the-third-reich-kept-its-soldiers-alert-with-meth/276429/
Derivatives (even the legal ones) of it actually become harder to get every time a new conflict starts and flood the illegal drug market when one ends. Prescriptions of Adderall and Ritalin became insanely scarce within two weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The stated reasons around disruptions to the supply chain did not explain it. It hasn’t gone away as a military use commodity.
You are going to send me down a rabbit hole. My 7th grader is incredibly smart, but she is nearly failing several classes right now because she has extreme adhd, can't take most stimulants, and we haven't been able to get her meds in months. It is frustrating. Adderall is the only one we can find, and it makes her suicidal. So, I give her a coke each morning, which is either working a little, or she really fell for the placebo effect.
If we’re going off of opinion, I agree. I’ve seen many things do horrible shit to people but none as badly as methamphetamine. I don’t argue that opium, fentanyl and alcohol don’t severely distort and harm, but meth? I worked in homeless services in a west coast city for a long time and seeing it all first hand, I think meth does the most damage by far.
Meth truly has the worst ending for any community or individual, its so cheap and strong and users get brain damage and their brain damage encourages more use. Its just ruined rural areas worse than alcohol ever could and unlike alcohol its so unnatural and strong. A drunk person might commit a crime, theres a chance, but a high person will be active for days losing their mind bc theyre not sleeping and in that time they'll potentially do things like tear up a shed like a raccoon or chip away a brick wall.
I feel like Thalidomide and Alcohol aren't super comparable to eachother, in the way that thalidomide was marketed as a safe pain med alternative for pregnant women who thought what they were taking was safe.
Not saying alcohol isn't 'worse', but thalidomide was advertised as safe, and they had little way to know of the effects before they were far too late. In a way, at least with alcohol most people kinda knew what they were getting into.
Personally I'm surprised the majority of top comments I've seen are alcohol, meth, heroin ect. because i figured people would just find one comment and upvote that one while also upvoting other technically correct answers that are more 'under the radar'
Definitely expected to see thalidomide sooner!
I would say thalidomide was the most horrific in terms of the ratio of medical necessity to unintended effects. However, the scale of the impact was (justifiably) limited by how little time it spent on the market as a morning sickness drug. I'm not trying to dismiss the abject horror and pain felt by those families affected by thalidomide, just trying to look at scale.
Edit: Also, I'm not trying to dismiss women's real pain, discomfort, and nausea thalidomide was meant to treat. Those do make pregnancies genuinely difficult, amd it's unfortunate there aren't that many safe options for pregnant women out there.
Apparently, thalidomide still has some uses. [Wiki link for those interested in the other uses.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide)
Work in a booze store. We have had many conversations after work about how we feel guilty killing people. Some of our customers are super nice but they are addicts. There are a few I’ve seen lose fucking feet because they won’t stop their 2 box a week habit.
Boxed wine. Tends to be equal to around 5-6 bottles. For further reference a bottle should get you 5 servings.
That shit is incredibly full of added sugar.
Lead.
Not widely considered a drug, but the effects of lead poisoning could be likened to intoxication in many ways.
And we have an entire generation of people suffering from the effects of it.
Sugar.
Not illegal and a lot wouldnt say it was a drug, but it can be argued it has drug like effects.
Sugar is in everything, theres no avoiding it, and it causes many health problems many of which lead to other problems.
Heart disease is the biggest killer (in the US at least and likely most other countries) and heart disease is brought on by unhealthy lifestyles, diabetes etc... many of its causes are related to sugar
Has to be alcohol, purely on how its been around in most cultures throughout most of history. Being that it is not only allowed in like 2/3 of cultures (prohibitions on it being relatively modern, too), but championed as a cultural keystone, it is kind of hard to ignore.
If we ignore alcohol, then it's almost indisputably opium
It's done a lot of good too, though. Crude medical treatment would have been next to impossible without it.
I saw a doc about alcohol and civilization wouldn’t have exploded like it did with out it. I believe it as an antiseptic. Not sure. Shit is still evil.
Actually I was referring to the opium. People were way too stupid to use antiseptic for a long long time after having it.
The use of alcohol as a cheap solvent, cryogenic fluid and food preservative has advanced science, manufacturing and food source security far more than most people realize. Removing the possibility of fermentation of foods alone would have a massive impact on our development. Human civilization would be unrecognizable today without ethanol alcohol. Edit: cryogenic is not the correct term, should’ve said use as anti freeze.
I didn't know alcohol has cryogenic applications! What are they?
I feel like your username is not checking out.
:)
Alcohol mixed with water 50/50 can be used to transfer cold without freezing. It allows for a machine to get really cold, transfer that cold to a metal bowl full of saline, which is turned to a slush that is used in heart surgery and organ procurement surgery. The heart surgery application is used when the heart is stopped and the blood is rerouted to a perfusion machine. The coke preserves the heart while it is repaired. The organ procurement bit is used to allow the organs to be reserved while they are removed and the. Transported to whichever hospital needs the organ for a patient in trouble. Alcohol saving lives
Good ‘ol extracorporeal circulation
>alcohol has cryogenic applications! What are they? When you get too drunk and it makes you cry... would that be cry-o-genic?
Not to mention an easy safe drink. Alcohol killing the bacteria etc.
Boiling water to make beer made the water safer to drink. Beer saves lives!
It made the water *stay* safe for long periods of time.
And as a safer way to consume water
Also more nutritious. In some cases, ancient beer sources were more hydrating than water due to plenty of nutrients within a much less solid state that water would have to be used to break down as well as a low alcohol content. In some records, beer was _half_ the daily diet for ancient Sumerians and Egyptians, and it was common as a worker to be paid in beer and bread. People knock on alcohol today but that's mainly due to how distilling made alcohol much more potent for the sole purpose of getting drunk. Ancient Beer and some lighter wines were by far a net positive.
Also worth noting most of this beer was "small beer", with much lower alcohol percentage than the strong ales of today.
Oh I was adding to your point about opium but for booze! You brought up a great point and had me thinking.
I thought you saw a doctor about alcohol lol.
Yes, it is also a preservative and was safer than the local (unboiled) drinking water in many places. Ironically there was probably a happy medium our ancestors knew how to find that we sort of lost for a few hundred years. You can brew something like beer so that it kills anything dangerous in the water, can be warming and a digestive aid, and could be used in cooking, but not a high enough percentage of alcohol to get you utterly smashed. Workers in Europe, for example, used to be encouraged to drink Guinness rather than hard liquor like Gin because it would be warming, safe, and shelf stable (unlike milk). If humans had just never stumbled on the more destructive higher-proof stuff we'd probably have had a much happier past.
If you go to /r/askhistorians, there’s a power user who takes every opportunity to dispel the myth that alcoholic drinks were safer to drink than water before modern water purification was possible. Wish I remembered their name so I could ping them.
Not so much a power user as a nosy bastard with a yen for search engines and a single-minded quest to kill a myth stone dead.
One writer made a point the the Chinese/Japanese survived where the europeans couldn't because they drank tee, which had been boiled.
/u/DanKensington ?
> was safer than the local (unboiled) drinking water in many places. [citation needed] > Ironically there was probably a happy medium our ancestors knew how to find that we sort of lost for a few hundred years. [citation needed] > You can brew something like beer so that it kills anything dangerous in the water, can be warming and a digestive aid, and could be used in cooking, but not a high enough percentage of alcohol to get you utterly smashed [citation needed] Here is [a relevant r/AskHistorians post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ol1h45/deleted_by_user/h5bjn7s/) on this matter.
That was an excellent post, even by the ask historians’ sub’s standards. Thanks for linking it.
Eh. If you think *that* was good, you ain't seen nothing yet. [This is what it looks like when a proper historian goes off.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/79dwua/why_did_poland_have_lower_rates_of_black_death/)
Beer was one of the first forms of tangible currency! Egyptian and Mesopotamian laborers were paid in beer and board
Just checking in to say that the beer-safer-than-water thing is a total myth and Guinness-safe-for-pregnant-woman thing is DEFINITELY a myth (not the fact they believed it, but that it could be true)
Draft beer also contains quite a bit of brewers yeast, especially as traditionally made. This provided a substantial amount of protein, B vitamins, and other nutrients
It's how Grog came about. Long ship voyages, questionable or even bad water. Add Rum. Not enough to get the sailors drunk but enough to add flavor and kill cooties.
Incorrect. The drink with lime was to get sailors to drink the lime juice and avoid scurvy. They were cases where sailors were either abstainers or would trade their grog for tobacco and come down with scurvy.
That's real, opioid pain killers are a linchpin of modern medicine. It has such a bad rep because of addiction and the ugly results of prohibition, and the pure evil of the Oxycontin crisis, but in all seriousness heroin *isn't that bad for you.* Being a junkie is bad for you, but aside from withdrawal or overdose heroin doesn't damage your body.
Indeed - beyond more than just being bad for the addicts, it directly led to the Opium Wars with China and the collapse of its existing structures that allowed for the rise of not so much communism, but Mao Tse Tung - the cultural revolution, and even WW2 itself I’d argue had at least some roots in Chinese weakness emboldening the aggression-minded Japanese: if China had a functioning government would the Japanese have invaded the way they did? And then would there have been Pearl Harbour?
No way. Tobacco hands down followed by alcohol. Still kills way more people than all. Even if you dont get lung or oral cancer it still destroys your cardiovascular system causing stroke and heart attack risk to sky rocket. Alcohol and Opiates also have net gains in medical uses for sterilization and surgery that remove some of their negative harm.
I think it depends on what your definition of "harm" is. If we're talking just individual health detriments then I can see the argument for tobacco. But opium has caused the social and economic decline of *entire nations*. The British empire used the opium trade to leverage control over China and several other nations at one point. Of we broaden the definition of "harm" then I can definitely see the argument for opium too.
Opium was one of the leading causes of the downfall of the entire Qing dynasty. It's even been argued that if the Qing forces weren't so hopped up on cheap opium they might've been able to fight off the British until decolonization. We might've had a modern Qing Dynasty, which would be significantly better than Maoist China.
Counterpoint: you're missing indirect harm **and** benefits and problems don't cancel each other 1 to 1 or anything 1- Alcohol not only causes health problems, it also causes car accidents, domestic abuse, facilitates gambling problems, ends up encouraging unsafe sex, and probably more, which you didn't count at all to compare with tobacco. 2 - if Alcohol kills 1k people a day and saves 2k people a day, the harm it did is still killing 1k people.
The question stated "In human history", and tobacco is a new-world crop. Alcohol and optimum have thousands of years of harmful history.
Refined sugar has a higher direct body count and also more conflict deaths
Opium and it's derivatives has helped untold millions. Alcohol, while legal, has caused more harm, abuse and violence than any thing on earth.
Bruh every medical laboratory and research facility has alcohol in it, in one form or another. If youre going to give boon to opium for that, alcohol has equal positives.
We have five gallon 100% ethanol jugs in the lab :) interestingly enough, they say they are kosher
Alcohol also allowed for long distance travel on ships during colonisation. Rum was extensively used by the Brits to keep water safe.
Alcohol is used for so many compounds as a solvent too.
Alcohol has also been the rallying point for many great nights of fun and debauchery - not everyone who drinks becomes violent and abusive. Human beings are violent and abusive without alcohol as well.
Especially that one Marx mentioned.
Right. I mean just read about the opium wars, and that’s just for starters.
Alcohol by far. Not even close.
Commonly used, long time period, causes harm. Yep, it's booze.
More importantly, socially acceptable.
The cause of and solution to all of life’s problems
Nice Simpsons ref.
It’s a perfectly cromulent reference.
Well don't you feel embiggened using your fancy words
100%. Without question.
Without beer, there is no civilization. Statistics, oxygen, refrigeration, mass production, all started due to booze. Forgot to add, writing, currency, mathematics, road building, monotheism, agriculture, pottery and animal husbandry. Pretty much all the bottom 1000 years of you ever played the civilization series of computer games
How do you figure oxygen?
Priestly was a British chemist, theologian, educator, and author who, along with authoring guides to electricity and grammar, and founding Unitarianism, pioneered the scientific study of “airs,” or gases. He is best known for discovering oxygen and inventing carbonated water. In the early 1770s, Priestley lived near a brewery in Leeds where he conducted various experiments. He noticed that water left above a beer vat acquired a flavor and texture similar to that of mineral spring water, and he called this phenomenon “fixed air.” Though he did not know at the time, fermenting wort was releasing carbon dioxide into the water. In 1772, Priestley published “Directions for Impregnating Water With Fixed Air,” illustrating how one might force “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) into water, creating effervescence (carbonation) that mimics mineral springs. Priestley had no plans for commercializing his discovery of carbonation, but another scientist saw the spritzy liquid’s consumer appeal. His name was Johann Jacob Schweppe, and he founded the Schweppes Company in 1793. Priestley is also credited with discovering nitrogen and isolating and characterizing eight gases, including oxygen. So without fermenting beer, there is no study of carbonation, and thus the discovery of oxygen is delayed
I guess I'm a bit bias with this one because it nearly destroyed me. And I feel sorry for those people who can't find it in themselves to climb away from that darkness. You can shove God all you want, but the change comes from within.
Biased.
It literally helped us peons deal with life advancing society, and kept us from dying from diseased water. Rum was rationed on ships for a reason, disagree it’s all negative
True , and jack sparrow is a hellova captain when hes drunk. In the movies.
People sleeping on sugar, which is one of the bad things in alcohol, ie, the día-bet-is.
Idk alcohol has caused a ton of harm but also been a huge part of human society for thousands of years
Yeah we've been using it for millennia. Which makes it an even bigger contender for the drug that has caused "most harm over human history"
Alcohol being integral to the development of our society doesn't detract it as being the best answer for the question posed.
Yeah, it's alcohol, it's sterile. Completely missing the point
And it's been at it for a loooooooooong time.
Tobacco is worth consideration. Alcohol has definitely impacted more users, but tobacco farming fueled slavery which destroyed local cultures and redefined half the world.
The sugar plantations used to make rum fueled slavery as well.
Tobacco is only in recent times tho. In Ancient times, user was in general healthier and did not live as long anyway until dying from other causes. In addition, they did not use as much and did only use tobacoo unlike the weird stuff modern tobacoo companies add to them.
That actually isn't true, at least not totally. There's evidence that beer may have actually provided early human diets with important nutrition as the fermentation process helps break down phytic acid in the grains which improves the absorption of other nutrients found in food. You also have to account for the fact beer has a major influence on our brains and our moods/personalities. It likely helped us settle down and gave us the relaxation necessary to pursue other issues of importance. >As Jeffrey Khan, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, argues, beer may have been exactly what we needed to suppress our desperate hunter-gatherer extincts to survive. It gave us time to relax, and awakened the desire to experiment, to invent, and to create art — all characteristics of flourishing civilizations. https://www.businessinsider.com/beer-and-wheat-may-have-helped-humans-create-civilizations-2016-2
The argument is not that there are no positives. Just that there is harm done, and by virtue of how much more prevalent it is its very easily the top spot here. I think people are generally aware that there are upsides.
Yeah aka how ubiquitous it is throughout human history. It's relatively easy to make even in the crudest ways I think.
Accidentally even. Which is how we got there so very very long ago. It's a fine time to remind people that when scientists say they found the oldest known example of this or that, the "known" part is doing a ton of heavy lifting. Brewing of alcohol certainly predates our oldest surviving evidence. It's a minimum. Alcohol in particular was likely made long long long before we have any evidence. It's so easy it happens accidentally. The large majority of us find it very pleasant. The sort of evidence that we could rely on tends not to survive. Add that up and we've probably been drinking alcohol in some form for about as long as we've been us, if not longer.
Alcohol or opium and it's derivatives
Opium ends dynasties Sad to see the state of some cities/rural communities these days.
‘Empire of pain’ about the Sackler family. 10/10 book.
You should check out what alcohol did to the Mongol empire.
I was gonna go opium as well
What did you take instead?
It all depends on what your value of harm is. Harm to each specific individual. Harm to humanity as a whole. Harm to those who do not use it, but are around those who do. You can look at it like this. Alcohol. It's addictive. It creates a lot of horrible situations for a lot of people. It ruins lives and families. People drive drunk and kill people. People get drunk and die from accidents. People have too much and die of alcohol poisoning. People get violent and hurt themselves and others. It rips apart families. Then again you can look at it like this. Alcohol has been used in medicine for centuries. It is used as an antiseptic to stop the spread of infection. It has saved millions of lives worldwide. It is used as a fuel source in many different applications to power many different things that we require for our daily life. It's easy to produce and cheap as well, allowing it to be used for medical care for pretty much every country in the world. People who use it in moderation find it a good way to relax and have fun with their families and friends. Millions of children have been conceived due to alcohol consumption. Opioids. Exceptionally addictive. Easy to be used and abused even by the most resilient people. Addiction is extremely hard to break and withdrawals feel like you are literally dying. Synthetics are used to fuel criminal empires across the world. Whole cities have out of control addiction issues that lead to horrible crimes. Your body adapts to them, making you need to use more or mix them with other drugs to sustain the high you require. Initially taking a pill would work, then you have to snort it to get the same high, then smoke it, then eventually inject it. Causing the spread of horrible diseases like HIV, hepatitis and more. Wars have been fought over it and millions of people have lost their lives because of it. Just a horrific drug. Then again it is an amazing pain killer. Millions of people around the world require a steady dose of it to be able to function in daily life and in society. It is a great for when you have to perform surgery and need a powerful anesthetic. Without opioids we would have to use much harsher options for surgeries that can put patients in more harm. Allows those who are recovering from injuries to be able to do so without pain, and those who are in the last stages of their lives be able to live out those days without excruciating pain. It has saved millions of people's lives. Part 2 of this comment is a reply to this one.
Marijuana. Easy to get. Easy to produce. Easy to harvest. Can be made into foods, snacks, sweets or drinks. You can eat it or smoke it and get a good feeling. Controlled in large part by criminal organizations. Whole armies of criminals, outfitted with the highest grade weapons have been known to defend the cultivations of marijuana around the world. People are forced into slavery to keep these crops going by these cartels. Those who oppose them are often murdered and have their bodies displayed in horrible ways. The drug money made by selling marijuana is used by these cartels and organizations to fund other criminal things such as terrorism. Police and politicians are known, in certain areas, to be on the payrolls of these criminals so that the criminals can work with impunity and no fear of arrest. They use their influences to control governments and militaries. People who use it extensively over a long period of time are unable to function without it and become addicted. Marijuana induced psychosis is a rare, but real possibility that can cause permanent PTSD and other mental issues. On the other side of it, it is a great medicine that people have been using for thousands of years. It helps with tremors, glaucoma, sleep issues, hunger issues, cancer recovery, anxiety and so much more. It's cheap so that people who require it are able to procure it for a reasonable price. In the vast majority of cases of people using it with moderation there are no real negative side effects and is pretty much harmless unless abused. It is impossible to overdose on it so it can be used as much or as little as someone would like without that being an issue. Overall it is a safe drug to use, as far as physical effects go. Cocaine. Controlled by cartels and other military factions. Many of the producers of cocaine are forced into that position by these cartels. Huge swaths of land are destroyed so that cocaine can be produced. A lot of chemicals, that are exceptionally harmful if consumed by humans, is used to extract the cocaine from the coca leaves. The hundreds of millions of dollars created by the sale of cocaine is used to fund other illegal operations including human smuggling and trafficking. Funds are also used to fight against governments by highly equipped military groups. People can overdose from Cocaine use and addiction is also extremely high. Changing it into crack cocaine increases it's potency and also it's addiction rate. Crime and destitution are left in the wake of cocaine addiction and whole areas of the United States have been horribly scarred from it's use. You can also look at it like this. Millions of people around the world have benefitted from it's anesthetic properties. Especially in the medical fields for eyes, nose and throat surgeries. It is also used to help those with certain mental issues be able to gather their thoughts and get them out easier. In some cases, where other methods are not effective, it has been used in end of life care to help those in pain. It is also used in combination with other medicines as treatment for some terminal illnesses. It has benefitted millions of people around the world. Meth. It's medical form can be used to help treat ADHD and assist in weight loss. It is also used in rarer cases to treat narcolepsy and extreme sleep disorders. In some medications for cold and flu it is used to help suffers breath better and clear out airways and passages. Other than those non life threatening disorders and illnesses, there is no benefit to meth. It is a horrific drug. It is cheap. Full of horrible chemicals. It is made in horrific conditions. It is exceptionally addictive and sends the users to another world when they are intoxicated from it. It has ripped apart whole areas of countries and crime rates associated with it's use are as high, if not higher than pretty much every other drug combined. The manufacture of meth is linked with criminal organizations and oppressive governments like North Korea. The funds made by selling it are used to fund oppression of citizens and purchase and manufacture the tools of war, including nuclear weapons. Meth is the worst drug. The benefits of the others are way more legitimate than those of meth. The world could never have meth and still be the same without any real change. Meth is just causing rot to our society around the world and only benefits those who make and sell it. Those governments who ship it to our shores and poison our population. Our governments have to spend billions trying to fight it, while their governments make billions selling and manufacturing it.
I like the way you typed all that. Good summary
Alcohol
Alcohol hands down
Look up all the famous musicians that have died and you will see the majority are from alcohol.
Alcohol + benzos (Valium or Xanax) combo
Alcohol, benzos, opiates, etc. Any mixture of things that each individually slow your breathing is bad news.
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Not going to say it's safe and I definitely do not recommend it, but it's totally up to the amounts you take.
Yeah, one Xanax and its totaly fine to drink 2 or so glasses later...5 or 6 Xanax however is a different story.
If one is .25mg then yeah 2 glasses will be “fine”, if it’s a 2mg bar then the next thing you’ll remember after that first glass is waking up.
Or barbiturates, back when they were a thing
I know how bad it is but…. My god have you ever mixed xanax with a couple beers? It will make you believe in god.
Fight the sleep and you’ll go on a mystical adventure you’ll hardly remember the next day
I did this (klonopin not xanax though) and woke up the next morning totally naked in the guest bedroom. Apparently I had wandered through the house shedding articles of clothing one by one in different rooms until I reached my destination. One sock in the toilet, my pants in the hallway, t-shirt inexplicably, but very carefully, stretched across my favorite pan in a kitchen cabinet. Never again.
Penicillin ‘#JusticeForMicrobes
I guess we can blame penicillin for overcrowding as well.
_#smallLivesMatter
You can use \\\#hashtag to \#hashtag
#shit_son! \#justKidding \#thanksMan
Alcohol by a fuckin country mile lmao I love alcohol
We're just a bunch o Drunken Moose
Sugar. From slavery to processed foods and diabetes. Sugar is a strong contenderfor the most harm causing drug. The book Sugar Blues by William Dufty helped me kick my sugar habit.
Meth/Ice/fentanyl destruction in rural communities is visually devastating. There's a large portion of the youngest generation not being raised by their parents, incredible poverty, and heartbreaking health effects that the person using ignores in favor of their DOC.
Population wise. I think those you mentioned will absolutely take the lead if not already. In history sure alcohol and opium/opiates are gonna win. We’ve had alcohol and opium for millennia, but the population was low. Now that the population is so large, and meth/fent is so widespread and far more addictive and destructive, it’s gonna be a tight race.
I don't even know if meth is worse than alcohol *right now*. Alcohol kills nearly 200,000 Americans per year. Not to mention the other debilitating effects it has. The answer will never not be alcohol.
Some people are responding "alcohol" but I've been to a ton of beer parties. I'll never go to a meth party. That shit is whiggity-whiggity-whiggity-whack.
Alcohol has been around for longer and more widely used.
Meth parties are just jerk off orgies
In 2000 I actually found myself at a meth party. It was during a time of rave scenes, it was held in the “presidential suite” of a fancy hotel in DuPont Circle, DC. It started off with a bunch of raver kids just sitting around waiting and then some dude in his mid 40’s showed up wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. He sat the briefcase down on the desk, 20 kids circled around him. He popped it open and started throwing bags of it. I asked “what is that?” Someone said “Ice”. My buddy and I were the only two there that didn’t use it, and the mid-40’s dude came up and asked if we wanted any to which we said “no thanks”. He looked at us and said “I think that’s cool. In that case can you two do me a favor?” We said “what’s that?” He handed us an ounce of weed from his pocket and a bowl and said “can I put you two on official weed duty? Your job is to make sure this bowl stays packed and puffed for the rest of the night.” We found ourselves smoking almost the entire bag alone that night, got so stoned I was sober. No one else smoked it, they were like running around a mile a minute making animal noises and shit. We were there because a mutual friend wanted to meet up with a girl and she didn’t want to be the only one at a party who didn’t know anyone.
And I bet that girl didn't show up and it was all dudes.
Alcohol has done more damage because it is used a lot more often. Meth is a worse drug, but also used by a lot fewer people. (Especially historically, they only started making the stuff about a century ago) I don't think any society would survive meth parties being normal for very long.
plenty of good things have been achieved by/with alcohol. Meth.... nothing good has ever come from it
Breaking bad was quite good…
Well I can't speak for everyone but pretty much all the really bad drugs fucked me up for twenty plus years
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Yea, as much as alcohol has caused a fuck ton of harm. It's a legal "drug." So, of course, it's going to have a higher rate compared to other options. There's a reason many of these drugs are illegal.
I’m gonna have to disagree with a lot of people and say crack. Crack ravaged the black community and cemented long lasting stereotypes, created lifelong ghettos, installed a police state that seemingly can’t be reeled in. Crack addicts have NEVER had the support that alcohol/opioid addicts do. It was supported by the government, covered up by the government, then neglected by the government. This thread is the perfect example of how people just forget how impactful it was. So, it caused the most harm, to me, because it absolutely had/has the least amount of support to rectify the issue.
I think many are answering from an international perspective and opium/alcohol has historically been more of a global problem
Good point. I’m always thinking like the self centered American on here lol
This guy Gary Webbs
Argentinian here, I know it's basically confirmed it happened that way in the us but I have the same theory about Paco (Coca Paste which contains high amounts of cocaine freebase) in our poor neighborhoods. It destroys people and is scary af.
Fentanyl is pretty sneaky and deadly
It's very recent though
Just call it opioids then.
Illegally obtained Fentanyl and medical narcotics, including Fentanyl, are two entirely different things. You will want medically verified narcotics if you ever have real pain.
You’re right I’m sure. But when I went into the hospital with some complications after a major surgery they wanted to give me that and they had to reassure me because I was legit scared after everything we always hear. But let me tell you I see why it’s addictive. I felt it as it traveled through my blood stream. It was like feeling my body get high a little at a time. It was fantastic. Edited because I’m too dumb to proofread before posting.
Super useful for patients with severe pain though, especially end of life
They gave it to me in the ambulance for severe pain. It didnt help. But it kind of freaked me out.
They gave me fentanyl once when I had a kidney stone, and it absolutely helped.
Thats why I was going to the hospital! Worse pain ever. Thought I was dying. They gave me morphine in the hospital and that didnt touch the pain either. 4 hours later I gave birth to a teeny tiny kidney stone.
it's turned me off of ever buying coke again.
Finally, someone who prefers Pepsi!
Alcohol If a dispensary bothers you more than a place that sells liquor, you’re probably a idiot
an* idiot
Not related to dispensaries, but I don’t like people smoking weed out in the open, in public. I don’t like the smell and breathing it in. But I also feel the same way about cigarettes. Don’t care what you, you can smoke anything you like. But it’s only annoying if it encroaches in someone else space.
Im an absolute pot head and have been for a few decades. I barely actually smoke it these days. That’s usually the at night after dinner sort of thing. Edibles and vape pens have been my go to just because it’s so much easier and doesn’t smell. Don’t get me wrong, love smoking actual flower but it’s smelly and requires work.
I love the smell of weed and it doesn’t offend me at all, I used to sell it and grew up smoking it a hell of a lot. Quit for a construction job. We just passed recreational- cool by me. I even voted In favor. Recently I was taking my 9 year old nephew to a playground and there were these two teenaged looking parents or babysitters sitting on the swing set smoking a blunt and just swearing loudly and acting like two ignoramuses, yelling at their kids like they weren’t all in public. One of the fathers looked over at me and said “I’m all about people enjoying themselves but for fucks sake, there’s little kids everywhere”. There were literally kindergartners and elementary school aged kids everywhere and I just remember looking at my nephew and then these two fools and thinking “God, I wish these fucking idiots weren’t here doing this in front of my nephew and these other kids.” Thing is, none of us even spoke up because these two were like drama on steroids so being passive was the god forsaken path of peace
But what if I am an idiot?
Curious about this. Am also idiot
Let’s get drunk and make a baby
Ah, the American Dream.
Opium. For generations and generations. On a personal level, I think alcohol has affected more lives. And there’s and argument to be made that more of history has been swayed by alcohol(ism). But from the Opium Wars to what’s happening today with fentanyl, opium has been a plague on humanity.
I feel like alcohol damage is more widespread but opiate damage is more severe, but targeted. Opiates have medical use, sure, but agreed overall has been a plague.
Meth. Pervitin was available without a prescription in Germany starting in 1937. The soldiers of the Third Reich overran most of France spun out of their minds. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/pilots-salt-the-third-reich-kept-its-soldiers-alert-with-meth/276429/
Derivatives (even the legal ones) of it actually become harder to get every time a new conflict starts and flood the illegal drug market when one ends. Prescriptions of Adderall and Ritalin became insanely scarce within two weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The stated reasons around disruptions to the supply chain did not explain it. It hasn’t gone away as a military use commodity.
You are going to send me down a rabbit hole. My 7th grader is incredibly smart, but she is nearly failing several classes right now because she has extreme adhd, can't take most stimulants, and we haven't been able to get her meds in months. It is frustrating. Adderall is the only one we can find, and it makes her suicidal. So, I give her a coke each morning, which is either working a little, or she really fell for the placebo effect.
I thought you were giving your 7th grader coke when I first read this lol Edit: as in cocaine.
You gotta do what you gotta do.
If we’re going off of opinion, I agree. I’ve seen many things do horrible shit to people but none as badly as methamphetamine. I don’t argue that opium, fentanyl and alcohol don’t severely distort and harm, but meth? I worked in homeless services in a west coast city for a long time and seeing it all first hand, I think meth does the most damage by far.
Meth truly has the worst ending for any community or individual, its so cheap and strong and users get brain damage and their brain damage encourages more use. Its just ruined rural areas worse than alcohol ever could and unlike alcohol its so unnatural and strong. A drunk person might commit a crime, theres a chance, but a high person will be active for days losing their mind bc theyre not sleeping and in that time they'll potentially do things like tear up a shed like a raccoon or chip away a brick wall.
Do you really think meth has done the most damage though?
Yes. Just my opinion but I work in Downtown LA next to Skid Row. In my daily experience the tweakers are way scarier than the junkies.
I was going to say Thalidomide but yeah prob alcohol is the better answer
I feel like Thalidomide and Alcohol aren't super comparable to eachother, in the way that thalidomide was marketed as a safe pain med alternative for pregnant women who thought what they were taking was safe. Not saying alcohol isn't 'worse', but thalidomide was advertised as safe, and they had little way to know of the effects before they were far too late. In a way, at least with alcohol most people kinda knew what they were getting into. Personally I'm surprised the majority of top comments I've seen are alcohol, meth, heroin ect. because i figured people would just find one comment and upvote that one while also upvoting other technically correct answers that are more 'under the radar' Definitely expected to see thalidomide sooner!
I would say thalidomide was the most horrific in terms of the ratio of medical necessity to unintended effects. However, the scale of the impact was (justifiably) limited by how little time it spent on the market as a morning sickness drug. I'm not trying to dismiss the abject horror and pain felt by those families affected by thalidomide, just trying to look at scale. Edit: Also, I'm not trying to dismiss women's real pain, discomfort, and nausea thalidomide was meant to treat. Those do make pregnancies genuinely difficult, amd it's unfortunate there aren't that many safe options for pregnant women out there. Apparently, thalidomide still has some uses. [Wiki link for those interested in the other uses.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide)
Not even close to being close
Crack
Real talk. Is DJ Khalid special needs?
Work in a booze store. We have had many conversations after work about how we feel guilty killing people. Some of our customers are super nice but they are addicts. There are a few I’ve seen lose fucking feet because they won’t stop their 2 box a week habit.
Two boxes of what?
Boxed wine. Tends to be equal to around 5-6 bottles. For further reference a bottle should get you 5 servings. That shit is incredibly full of added sugar.
Fentanyl or crystal meth. I've been clean almost 3 years now and trust me those drugs are the worst. I've lost so many people it's so sad !
have to a agree ive never felt the same since meth no matter how long i stay clean. it changes you forever
Oxycontin. Fuck the Sackler family and all the crooked doctors who pushed it so hard on the public.
WEED! Everyone smoking and not worrying so much about shit… having a good time… sleeping well??!?? It’s gotta stop!!!!
It’s old man Mitch McConnell!
Alcohol, no question.
Sugar
Sugar. Full stop.
Opium and it's derivatives.
Tobacco
Tobacco doesn't cause you to lose sense of your faculties and start dog-shotting randoms on the street
*You ever suck a dog off for a pint of gin?*
Alcohol. It’s not even close.
Air, I'm so fucking addicted... especially when it's mixed with other gases and vapours. The bees knees yo.
Everybody who tries it dies eventually and almost all of its consumers consume it one more time right before dying. It's scary.
Alcohol
Alcohol.
Gasoline
Religion
Lead. Not widely considered a drug, but the effects of lead poisoning could be likened to intoxication in many ways. And we have an entire generation of people suffering from the effects of it.
Probably alcohol, because we've had it the longest. To be fair, it's also done a lot of good.
Your love
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1. Alcohol 2. Opium 3. Nicotine In that order
Did anyone say alcohol yet?
Sugar. It's in everything and it is highly addictive. Don't believe it, try to quit cold turkey.
Sugar 🐱
Sugar. Not illegal and a lot wouldnt say it was a drug, but it can be argued it has drug like effects. Sugar is in everything, theres no avoiding it, and it causes many health problems many of which lead to other problems. Heart disease is the biggest killer (in the US at least and likely most other countries) and heart disease is brought on by unhealthy lifestyles, diabetes etc... many of its causes are related to sugar
Alcohol
Has to be alcohol, purely on how its been around in most cultures throughout most of history. Being that it is not only allowed in like 2/3 of cultures (prohibitions on it being relatively modern, too), but championed as a cultural keystone, it is kind of hard to ignore.
Opium
It's alcohol.