Full Disclosure

So then, inasmuch as a blog is sometimes superfluous I feel compelled on this day to entertain a subject that I usually avoid so as to keep as many friends as possible. So, while I have likely enjoyed having most of you as friends I will not hold you responsible if you feel led to terminate our relationship today. I just don't understand the amount of tolerance our society has for the consumption of alcoholic beverages. I understand that alcohol, like guns, does't kill people, people kill people. But if we treated alcohol like we do guns I would be happy. However, we don't. While it's been years since I made a study of the statistics surrounding our most beloved of killers, I think it's safe to say that alcohol is involved in, if not the primary cause of, the loss of far more innocent lives than guns and swimming pools combined. Smoking, on the other hand, endangers only the person sucking the smoke into their lungs. But really, do we want those nasty smells floating about our cities and homes. Heck, no. Let's ban them from society. Alcohol, on the other hand, gives us so many memorable events, from those lovely mass gatherings out by the river in high school to those foggy frat parties, and on to the ever popular vague impressions of striking those closest to us with the back of our hands, or worse. My mother was a heavy smoker but the cigarettes never influenced her to make rash decisions with tragic results. Those cigarettes never led to the break up of our home nor the financial ruin of spending all we had on her habit. I'm not aware of any car accidents resulting in the loss of life due to someone smoking while driving. Things like lake drownings, alcohol poisoning, sticking an arm in the fan blade of an engine while it's running, parking-lot fights, mattress fires from passing out with a lit cigarette in your hand, and untold public resources spent to offer assistance to those who were alcohol impaired come to mind. I know life offers lots of risks and accidents will happen for lots of reasons, but in my mind there is nothing we could do to more effectively improve our society than to try the whole prohibition thing again. The fact that we are so ready to legalize more drugs tells me what little understanding we have of the toll we are paying for the ones we already have.