So how many of you have gone back to smoking pot?

Danny G.

I'm a control freak, so I'm off of it all..... but there were a few days in Vietnam when we rotated out of the field back to a rear area, that I passed around a fat one.... and listened to Jimi Hendrix tapes... Seems like a lifetime ago. Hell, it was!

I feel somewhat responsible for this exchange. Tom, I have yet to say welcome so WELCOME! I appreciate the different views and well thought posts. I also appreciate your sense of humor that I have seen in several other posts, and your observations in other subject areas.

I base much of what I think on what real-world observations I have made, statistics are a very small part of that. What I do notice are statistics that don't seem to jibe with the real world. Whilst I have very strong opinions in several subjects, I do keep an open mind (weather anyone here sees that open mind

Mark - Thanks for the welcome. I fear my love of spirited discourse may prompt me to badgering. Nothing incites dialogue quite like an opinion.

Alcohol is an important part of our culture and has been. Its use is social, ceremonial and medicating. Most drinkers never approach dangerous limits, and rarely allow alcohol to put them in bad situations. Drinking is important if for no reason other than its long history. Most folks drug in one way or another - there is no sense in avoiding the relief it can offer.

But the drug that soothes one, may not soothe another. Alcohol for me becomes the tail wagging the dog very quickly. I choose to speak against it only from my narrow ledge of experience. I do not judge the drinker. My wife and friends drink without incident for them.

My slogan about 'alcohol makes you smart' is only a reference to alcohol's impact on judgement. All people make poorer choices when they are drinking. Its not a value comment about those persons who include alcohol in their lives. Alcohol impaired choices can generate horrific human tragedy - even upon the social drinker. Perhaps I have seen too much of it. Treatment workers tend to get passionate about it in much the same way highway patrolmen are passionate about seat belts.

For our puposes here, alcohol is more friend than foe. It is an aid to most who use it and may make substantial contributions to comfort and well-being. Vague definitions make any study about drinking very hard to utilize. It is my opinion that those adults who find ease and comfort in alcohol use should be very, very slow to give it up. One study or another, one passionate old social worker (me) or another should NOT be a reason for change. Tom

Tom, spirited discourse happens here! Not often (but sometimes) all the feathers get ruffled. We usually have a group hug and all is well. This thread hasn't gotten even close to heated so badger away if you feel the need. Frankly, sometimes it is good to stretch the mind away from the fact that this is a cancer forum.

If you are inclined to talk politics (as in red state blue state) Pleeeease don't. That is one thing that hasn't happened in the three years I have been here. :rolleyes:
I am absolutely certain I'd be shot at by several otherwise good people here if I went into politics.

Actually I am wondering what Sheldon has been thinking about his innocent post that started it all.

Tom,

While I strongly disagree with you, you have not seen anything yet. This place gets sick when we have a real disagreement. This time I wrote 5 different replies and I have kept them all, it's the new me.

Hey Brian, a fat what? Jimmy who? What are you guys talking about? I'm very confused.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all..........Oh no! Can I write that here?

Glenn

Amy, that was, without question, the funniest comment you have ever written.

Mark,

As far as this quote of yours: "Data in, statistics out. In life rarely is that the end. There is always a human that wanted the statistics and they probably had a reason for wanting the

Nelie, Business and Politics!

Ultimately someone has to pay for the study and even scientists want to get wages. The challenge I see is that pure science is very slow to think outside the box or be creative (and that may be better for pure statisticians). Private enterprise has to get there faster, better and more profitable. So they do what they can.

Glenn, I have a file folder filled with just those kind of replies! Perhaps we have the makings of "OCF Outtakes"

Actually my file has also got several letters to my customers, suppliers, editorial staff at the local rag (newspaper), certain family members, etc. I think it is healthy to type them, read them, then tear them up and throw them away. A wise friend of mine does this every new year: on a small piece of paper, writes the name of anyone that has wronged him in any way along with what ever they did. Then one evening, starts a fire and one by one throws them in the fire never to be considered again. Very theraputic. (and for some, a serious fire hazard)

Nellie makes a good point about the journal. Each has its own standards of review, and some have almost none. I mentioned this originally about it not being published in Lancet etc.

By the by while we are talking about all this, I have been having a heated discussion with the CDC for 4 years now about the value of implementing a screening protocol and guidelines here in the US for oral cancer. To put it mildly, they have shown no interest in putting any money into this despite the fact that any treating oncologist will tell you that early staging (early discovery and diagnosis) yields better end results. This is particularly true in cancers in which conventional therapies like slash, burn, and poison work well which OC definitely falls into. (They hate to see me come each year to the oral cancer work group, which I have a seat on.) So finally we have this ground breaking study published in Lancet (see the news section) with 170,000 people in it, over 10 years long, and the group that was screened for oral cancer (50%) had a 30% drop in mortality vs. the non screened group. This is finally the publication that I thought would get them off their asses. So I call the guy up 5 months after publication (June 3, 2005) and the head of everything dental at the CDC hasn't even heard of the study. I went ballistic, and it wasn't pretty. Their charter is exactly to protect the health of American via the implementation of guidelines etc.... So the guy calls me back the next day after he reads it and he says, "We've looked at it, and it has some serious flaws. First, half the screeners were not doctors." I said you have to be kidding me

Mark,
I can't help it, but when you talk about the intolerance toward alcohol from those around you, (which by the way I don't see...the opposite it seems is true...people are always offering me drinks and surprised that I barely drink at all) your arguments have a similar ring to those made by smokers who are mad about the restrictions that society is finally ( at least in the U.S. ) placing upon them. Smokers do piss me off. They can blow smoke in my face when I walk into a building or totally pollute a bar or locker room, and then complain when a little old city ordinance kicks them outside. Hell I'm fighthing for my life, I think, and you are sitting there sucking down those awful things and making me, the self righteous cancer survivor have to breathe it as well.

However,I have no axe to grind with alcohol.(although it did piss me off when my ex just had to have a couple every night ). If it made me feel as good as it does you, I would drink the stuff myself. For me it has always been a kind of depressant. It must be my Jewish genes or something...the stuff just does not agree with me. However there was a period during my recovery where I learned to really like my vicodin. Fortunately I never got hooked on that stuff.


Interesting thread from all you intellectuals.

Danny G.