No, actually not. Alcohol is a potent poison and kills cells - hence the use as desinfectant. The physical damage caused by alcohol abuse rival and surpass most illegal substances.
Alcohol is also one of a very small number of drugs where the physical symptoms of withdrawal can be fatal. That doesn't mean being an alcoholic is worse than being addicted to some other drug (salt withdrawal is invariably fatal, but nobody's out there saying "salt ruins lives"), but it's potentially an argument for alcohol being especially nasty to the body.
oh sure, this is about moderate drinkers, not about people abusing alcohol as a drug. The side effects of moderate use of pretty much every controlled substance are pretty much insignificant as long as you use a pure, unadultered drug (let's forget about croc or battery acid etc). But once you get into heavy use, alcohol starts looking pretty bad: destroys liver and brain among other things, compared to e.g. opium where the worst side effect is constipation. Overdoses obviously kill in both cases, so let's keep that out of the picture here.
>But once you get into heavy use, alcohol starts looking pretty bad
Well, you can die with heavy dose of water too. Actually not even that heavy, people have died drinking like 7-10 liters.
>The side effects of moderate use of pretty much every controlled substance are pretty much insignificant
Yeah, but the research shows moderate use of alcohol not only doesn't have bad effects (even if insignificant) but it even has significant (measurable) beneficial effects.
> Yeah, but the research shows moderate use of alcohol not only doesn't have bad effects (even if insignificant) but it even has significant (measurable) beneficial effects.
Citation? Also, what's 'moderate' use for you? A 'standard drink' equals about 10 grams alcohol, the German institute for addiction (DHS) says* that the threshold dose for risk free consumption is at 20 grams per day, with two days break per week. Above you are risking a plethora of health risks, from mouth cancer, to liver deseases, breast cancer and what have you. There are some benficial health effects, but none of them are 'significant'.
And it get's worse. Because your not really tripping but rather fighting poisoning, it effectively cuts the connection to the better part of who you are. If it wasn't for alcohol, a lot of the trouble we see in society simply wouldn't exist.
Some would say the puke part is part of the cleansing, more spiritual than physical. Comparing shrooms to alcohol is very unfair. One is a spiritual plant, one is poison.
Pish. Once in a while, a drink is just the right elixer for a conversation or a mood change with a new friend. It doesn't deserve top billing, and the other drugs don't deserve to be so screwed, but it does have a deserved place in the human experience. Calling it mere 'poison' misses the mark for me.
Only because of the wide spread of use.