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From: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.med
Subject: Re: Drug Abuse:  Who is an abuser.
Message-ID: <166@spectrix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 17:07:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: spectrix.166
Posted: Thu Oct  9 17:07:39 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Oct-86 17:34:30 EDT
References: <720@scc.UUCP> <20756@rochester.ARPA> <478@cci632.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
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Xref: mnetor talk.politics.misc:455 net.med:3714

In article <478@cci632.UUCP> rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes:
>In article <8643@duke.duke.UUCP> rjn@duke.UUCP (R. James Nusbaum) writes:
>>In article <1313@trwrb.UUCP> suhre@trwrb.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) writes:
>>>
>>>	Try this one.  The majority of people that drink "socially" 
>>>	can enjoy the pleasures of alcohol without becoming addicted,
>>>	damaging their lives, etc.  Do the majority of cocaine users
>>>	follow the same pattern?
>Now for some interesting figures:

Interesting, but useless without some definitions:

	- What's an alcoholic?  Some of the surveys being bandied about
	  consider an alcoholic to be anybody who has consumed the equivalent
	  of 3 beers or more in a week.
	- What's a regular user of alcohol?

If you used the definitions I would use, (say: %40 of adults are "regular
users" (eg: wine with meals, a beer or two with the guys, etc.)), then
you'd have something like 18% of all adults ending up in institutions,
jail or dead.  And, something like 5-10% as alcoholics at any given time.
Seems awful high!  Especially in other cultures (eg: France where 
wine is consumed at every meal by almost everybody)
-- 
Chris Lewis
UUCP: {utzoo|utcs|yetti|genat|seismo}!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
Phone: (416)-474-1955