Canada

The fact that wine and beer bottles are exempt from those Nutrition Facts labels is utter nonsense.

If people knew how much sugar and calories are in their drink maybe they would think twice

Meanwhile cannabis beverages are required to have:

-Nutrition facts including calories, sugar, etc.

-Gigantic yellow warning with random health warning (e.g., don't use if pregnant)

-Huge red stop sign cannabis leaf logo

-KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN

-Big pain in the ass plastic childproof thing

None of these required on a can of beer.

From a harm reduction perspective, it's a massive failure. Many cannabis beverages have very low nearly zero calories, sugar-free. For your physical health they are almost certainly less harmful than alcohol and I know many people would enjoy them as an alternative to alcohol.

We have faced a similar failure in harm reduction strategy regarding vaping versus tobacco. I think in both cases it's a result of vested interests (tax revenue, lobbying, don't know) trumping what is best for people.

I would like a ban on advertising, too.

Because it would be weird reading that smoking alcohol is dangerous for pregnant women.

And sugar. Off topic a bit, but my addiction is sugar and some reminders might make the occasional difference.

Because alchol sellers aren't widely considered as flat out evil as cigarette makers, meaning that they can still realistically grease the wheels of power with dump trucks full of money.

I'm sure cigarette makers would love to the do the same thing, but no politician is dumb enough to risk taking "campaign contributions" from people who are widely considered to be the scum of the earth. Alcohol makers still have a level of respectability that lets them get away with it.

Or to the leading cause of death of Canadians: dietary cholesterol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY0UY3FwoW4

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Roberts-14/publication/23313863_The_Cause_of_Atherosclerosis/links/551477890cf283ee08364f81/The-Cause-of-Atherosclerosis.pdf

The leading cause of death of Canadians can be eliminated strictly through diet and avoiding animal products that contain cholesterol. And yet we pour millions of dollars into research each year for cutting edge new drugs that give you (so claimed) a 20% reduction in heart attacks, while having dozens of unwanted side effects.

If you're relying on the government and industry to teach you how to be healthy and to provide the tools you need to do it, you're going to die young.

I wholly agree with the author of this article, but implementing something like this will meet a lot of resistance. Let's not forget that cigarettes are a relatively new phenomenon, whereas alcohol is something we've consumed as a species since prehistoric times. There are a lot of cultural, social, and historical ties to the use of alcohol that people won't let go easily and will make any attempt to reduce alcohol consumption an uphill battle.

Not really equivalent. Smoking permanently leaves all kind of nasty shit in your lungs and causes cancer. Also very addictive, making moderation physically difficult (alcohol can also be addictive but not to the same extremes). Alcohol in moderation isn't really an issue. Pushing it more can give your liver a bad time, but as long as you give it a break before the point of disease it can bounce right back.

There is a societal problem especially in the UK in that it's seen as a sort of matter of pride to throw moderation out of the window and get as wasted as possible, but I have my doubts that graphic health warnings will do much about that. Either way it's more an effect of society ignoring and sometimes even shaming moderation (how many times have you been shamed for going home before you fall over on a work's night out) than the alcohol itself.

Warnings now do appear on the back of alcohol in the EU but they're usually small things on the back of the label stating the units of alcohol in the bottle & warning about drinking while pregnant or whatever.

“I don’t want to say that there are necessarily equivalent health risks,”

I mean, they said it themselves. Drinking responsibly and in moderation poses no recorded long-term health risks. But even 1 cigarette a day can cause serious harm.

Dooo it. They'll be a bit more tame, though, because moderate drinking is not nearly as deadly as smoking.