Americans are reaching for alcohol at record lows, according to a new Gallup survey – and health concerns appear to be a major factor.

Not sure about grabbing that beer? You’re not alone. Americans are reaching for alcohol at record lows, according to a new Gallup survey.

The survey, out Aug. 20, found the number of Americans who say they drink alcohol sits at 54% for the second consecutive year − and health concerns appear to be a major factor.

“Fifty-one percent of U.S. adults now believe drinking one or two alcoholic beverages a day is bad for one’s health,” the survey results noted. “The figure is essentially unchanged from last year’s record-high 53%.”

In 2001, only 27% considered moderate drinking bad for one’s health, according to Gallup.

  • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    19 hours ago

    You’re confusing the slippery slope with making reasonable predictions. Every future prediction is not a slippery slope. Slippery slope is only a fallacy when you’re making wild baseless predictions, not entirely predictable and likely outcomes.

    I was listening to Adam Connover’s recent podcast on alcohol. And they were talking about how we don’t even have major public health campaigns to reduce alcohol use. They mentioned how most attempts to do so are met by people by people citing neo-prohibition fears. They explicitly said it’s not a big deal, and that no one is talking about banning alcohol.

    Yet this same discussion was based around arguing that we should apply the same efforts we currently use for tobacco to alcohol. Yet, we’ve actually seen efforts to explicitly ban tobacco in various countries. The current preferred approach is to ban it for anyone born after a certain year.

    It’s not a logical fallacy at all to be seeing this as a move to banning alcohol. The modern discussions about increasing alcohol regulation are all in the context of the last generation’s public health efforts against smoking, and those efforts have culminated in attempts at banning tobacco entirely. A country writing a law that said, “no one born after 2010 will ever be allowed to purchase alcohol” is entirely in line with contemporary alcohol and tobacco regulatory efforts.