Alcohol shouldn't be regulated, endangering others while intoxicated and other irresponsible acts should be.
But it's not like government forced itself into this position on a whim. Society experienced the alternative to government regulation and decided it wasn't sufficient.
Since sugar is already regulated in that way, I doubt that is what the author's meant, e.g. one must list sugar on the nutrition label of a packaged food, one cannot sell sugar as saccharin, etc.
Those people are adults, and the numbers of cases is so small that one might question its statistical significance.
Furthermore, what evidence is there that regulation would be a more effective way of dealing with the problem (if it exists) than alternatives such as education or public awareness campaigns?
You clearly miss the point. The fact is that liver disease is increasingly significantly in age groups it was not historically a problem in. This was widely reported in the UK last year, I may not have picked the best article.
In other words, a 32 year old with a beer belly might be more likely to be diagnosed based on a doctor's increased awareness, or may be more likely to be diagnosed because of more frequent visits to the doctor.
And even if those do not play a role, a case has not been made that special regulations with regard to alcohol are a better solution than other alternatives.
I would like a law that lets some people out of both welfare and laws that prevent a person from damaging themselves.
Once a substance impairs your judgement, good luck "regulating" anything that may happen as a consequence. Regulation should intervene before reason flies out the window. Doing otherwise is illogical - just another ivory-tower, human-nature-ignorant, "liberty trumps everything" nonsense.
- Proper regulation(not prohibition) takes money away from organized crime.
- Government based health regulations are still of great social impact.
- The money generated helps pay for the societal impacts of its use.
So does legalization/lack of regulation.
I believe that drunk drivers should not (in the typical case) lose their driving privileges when convicted of driving while intoxicated.
After all, they're not bad drivers (when sober), they're bad drinkers. That is to say they have demonstrated that not only are they unable to behave responsibly after using alcohol, but also that they are unable or unwilling to anticipate and plan for this inability before using.
Instead there should exist the concept of a "drinking license" that can be revoked if an inability to act responsibly with respect to alcohol is demonstrated. (We already have regulations and penalties to keep alcohol out of the hands of certain classes of people in the US, but currently we use an age threshold instead of a more sensible set of criteria -- it's far from airtight but is a decent balance of effectiveness versus intrusiveness).
"Acting responsibly" could include anything from "not committing a crime under the influence" to "not endangering one's health" to "not becoming dependent on welfare".
In principle this could be extended to other recreational drugs, beginning with cannabis and possibly extending to harder drugs.
(This is all basically stolen/borrowed from here: http://www.samefacts.com/2011/06/drug-policy/a-serious-drug-...)
Unfortunately some degree of damage to society will happen before it can be demonstrated before a judge that a person is acting irresponsibly, and even what's broadly agreed upon as "responsible use" of recreational drugs would cause some damage to the physical and mental health of some individuals. So some level of "sin tax" is probably still justified.