>"They ask you concerning INTOXICANTS (Alcohol and
> other Drugs)...Say: In them is great harm and some
> benefits for humankind. But the harm of them is
> much greater than their benefit."(Koran 2:219)
>
> The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the
> United States, uses the criterion of the Koran,
> given in the above statement, when it tests any new
> innovative drug. If the harm or side effects of
> any drug are found to exceed their usefulness, they
> are banned from further production and marketing.
> Alcohol is such a "drug." It is the most highly
> abused "drug" in the United States. Its harm far
> exceeds any benefits that it provides when used as
> a beverage. Therefore a call to outlaw alcohol and
> drugs on a community level, as the Koran suggests,
> is justified based on objective criteria, criteria
> routinely administered by the FDA.
>
> Alcohol consumption in any amount leads to a
> physiological tendency to abuse it, based on its
> effect on the serotonin levels in the brain.
> Therefore, the idea of responsible drinking is
> itself irresponsible .
>
> The Koran's call to completely shun alcohol and
> other intoxicants is justified because law has to
> be applied uniformly. For the law to be applied
> justly and uniformly, in order to benefit society as
> a whole, those who have a greater tendency to
> abuse alcohol shouldn't have access to the drug
> neither should those who have a lesser tendency to
> abuse it. Laws that are applied society-wide
> cannot discriminate between those with different
> tendencies to abuse a harmful substance.
>
> However, for the purpose of rehabilitation, the
> Koran allows the use of alcohol based on its
> principle of dietary laws being flexible in order
> to save lives,without willful
> transgression.(Koran 2:174)
>
> Alcohol is harmful on an individual and a social
> level:
>
> 1) 60-70% of all crime involves alcohol and/or
> other intoxicating drugs. Almost 50% of all violent
> crimes involve alcohol. Twenty-four percent of
> Federal inmates and 49% of State inmates reported
> that they were under the influence of alcohol or
> illicit drugs at the time of their current
> offense. 36.3% were under the influence of alcohol
> alone. Federal research also shows that more than
> 40% of convicted murderers being held in jail or
> State prison, had alcohol as a factor in their
> crime. Extensive data is available to show the
> relationship between violent crime and alcohol. In
> the United Kingdom, the British Medical
> Association, advised the Parliament that alcohol
> is a factor in: 60-70% of homicides 75% of
> stabbings 70% of beatings 50% of fights and
> domestic assaults. According to the Seventh Special
> Report to the U.S Congress on Alcohol and Health,
> "In both animal and human studies, alcohol more
> than any other drug, has been linked with a high
> incidence of violence and aggression."
>
> Alcohol temporarily increases brain serotonin
> function, but after that temporary rise, levels of
> serotonin fall below the normal level. This
> reduced serotonin level is linked to a heightened
> vulnerability to depression, increased risk of
> violent suicide, aggressive and impulsive
> behavior, and a tendency to further abuse alcohol,
> according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse
> (NIDA). Alcohol consumption in any amount leads
> biologically (through serotonin) to a tendency to
> abuse it. There is no such thing as responsible
> drinking on a society-wide level.
>
> "
Alcohol, the oldest and most prevalent cause of
> addiction, is by far the most prolific activator
> and deactivator of brain centers. Nothing else comes
> close. Not cocaine, not heroin, not nicotine
Using
> PET scanners, University of Chicago scientists
> studied the effects of alcohol on the brain. Since
> alcohol affects the pleasure centers of the brain
> (the limbic network in the mid brain), it is
> directly responsible for compulsion, addiction and
> craving." (Kotulak 1997:111)
>
> "But to modern scientists, the discovery of
> alcohol's ability to turn on the brain's reward
> system is the key to understanding how alcohol
> creates a craving so intense that it makes emotion
> rule over reason. When a person slips into
> dependence, alcohol craving becomes a drive as
> powerful as the need for food, water, sleep and
> sex."(Kotulak 1997:116)
>
> 2) Nearly 50% of Automobile fatalities in the U.S.
> are linked to Alcohol (one death every 11 minutes
> according to 1990 estimates). Forty percent of all
> fatal motor vehicle crashes involve alcohol. Drunk
> driving is the nation's most frequently committed
> violent act. In 1990, 22,083 people died in car
> accidents involving alcohol. This is equivalent to
> three fully loaded 747s crashing three times a
> week, every week for a year. About two in every five
> Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related
> car crash sometimes in their lives.
>
(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3121/statistics.html).
>
>
> 3) Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) results in mental
> and physical retardation of the newborn. The
> incidence of FAS in the United States is 1.9 cases
> per every 1000 births. Birth defects other than
> FAS linked to alcohol use are 1 in every 100
> births. Statistically these numbers are huge.
> According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
> the net rates for FAS are 1 in 500 for US, Canada,
> Europe and Australia combined. In 1991, The
> Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
> reported that FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) is the
> leading known cause of mental retardation in
> Western Civilization (see http://come-over.to/FAS)
>
>
> 4) As many as half the young offenders appearing in
> provincial court may be there because their
> mothers drank (alcohol) during pregnancy, says Royal
> University Hospital psychologist Josephine Nanson.
> (See,
> http://www.treefort.org/~tjk/fas/zakreski.htm).
>
> 5) Almost 78% of all assaults, most of them
> involving men beating women, are committed under the
> influence of alcohol. In the United States, a man
> beats a woman every 15 seconds. Two-thirds (75%)
> of partner abuse victims in the US report that
> alcohol had been a factor. For spouse abuse
> victims, the offender was drinking three out of
> four times (See,
> http://www.tf.org/alcohol/ariv/reviews/dvrev5.html)
>
>
> 6) Alcohol causes permanent damage to the brain,
> liver and most internal organs of the consumer. It
> is a poison, which the body tries to get rid of the
> moment it is consumed. An enzyme in the stomach,
> alcohol dehydrogenase, tries to neutralize the
> ethanol content in alcoholic beverages, treating it
> as a poison. Since women have a higher proportion
> of body fat and less water in their bodies, this
> means that alcohol will be less diluted and have a
> greater effect on them compared to men. Also, the
> enzyme in the stomach that neutralizes ethanol,
> alcohol dehydrogenase, in women is 70-80% less
> effective than it is in men. Alcohol, therefore,
> causes even greater harm to women. In women that
> drink heavily, cirrhosis of the liver sets in
> within 13 years compared to the 22 years for men
> (see http://www.alcohol.or/nz).
>
> 7) Alcohol acts as a "stepping-stone" for other
> "higher" drugs like Marijuana, Cocaine and Heroine.
> Those who don't do alcohol don't experiment with
> other drugs (Siegel, Sienna 1994). This is in
> contrast to stimulants like caffeine, which don't
> figure out in this stepping stone.
>
>
> According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse
> (NIDA), treatment data suggests, Increasing
> proportions of persons treated for alcohol
> problems also have drug problems. Thus, the drug
> war can never be won without outlawing alcohol.
>
> 8) According to NIDA, the economic cost to society
> of alcohol was estimated at $148 billion in 1992.
> When adjusted for inflation and population growth,
> the cost increases over 12.5% every year. (See
> http://www.nida.nih.gov/EconomicCosts/Index.html).
>
> Recently, the alcohol industry started a new
> marketing scam, terming alcohol use beneficial to
> health. The contingencies involved in such
> negligible "benefits", that were advertised with
> "passion", are such that they have not accrued on
> aggregate levels at all. We haven't seen deaths
> related to heart disease go down since these
> "benefits" were advertised, in the United States.
> What we see is that deaths directly related to
> alcohol, are high in every country where alcohol is
> part of the culture (Weeks 2000). We can conclude
> therefore that the harms of alcohol far exceed any
> benefits that it has when used as a beverage.
>
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