Hacker News Reader

Comment by notch898a | Hacker News Reader

It is counting alcohol related deaths, not deaths from substitution effect to other intoxicants.

What intoxicants are cheaper than alcohol? The only one that comes to mind is cannabis, and if people are ditching alcohol for cannabis I think that will surely save lives.

Paint, glue, mouthwash. They said they found the difference was most pronounced in the poorest areas so these options are already on the menu.

Do you actually have evidence that alcoholics are switching to paint huffing, or is this just speculation?

Alcoholism is unusual among addictions in that it's (1) largely invisible until its end state and (2) minimally taboo when it occurs in "high-functioning" individuals. Huffing chemicals is neither of those things, nor is swallowing mouthwash (which is more likely to make you sick than drunk at the quantities an average adult would need.)

Deaths are down, not up, so obviously most people aren't switching to such hazardous intoxicants.

Increasing the cost of alcohol not only decreases the relative cost of cheaper substances, it also decreases the relative cost of more expensive substances.

I don't think alcohol abuse is that fungible with other drug abuse. People probably do switch, but it's hard to imagine that every alcoholic who reduces their drinking by so-and-so much increases, say, heroin use by an equivalent amount (in terms of expected mortality).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com