CHAPTER XVI

THE ALCOHOL PROBLEM

Of all the problems relating to health and efficiency there is none graver than that of the narcotic-stimulants.  With the exception of tobacco, which is probably, for adults, but mildly deleterious, their use is fraught with danger, both physical and moral; beyond the narrowest limits it is certainly baneful, while it is as yet an open question whether even a very slight use is not distinctly harmful.  The exact physiological effects of the several narcotic-stimulants are different, but they are alike in stimulating certain activities and depressing others; and their attraction for men is similar.  Opium, morphine, and cocaine are more powerful drugs, and more inherently dangerous; but alcohol is much the most widely used and so most productive of evil.  The hypodermically used narcotics need not be here discussed; for although they can give a far keener pleasure than alcohol, the penalty they inflict is more evident.  Moreover, since their sale is not pushed by such powerful interests as continually stimulate the use of alcohol, they can, by the vigilant enforcement of existing laws, be readily removed from any general use.  We turn, then, to the consideration of the one which has got a universal hold on the imagination and social habits of men, the only one that constitutes at present a serious and complicated problem.

What are the causes of the use of alcoholic drinks?

(1) We may dismiss at once the suggestion that alcoholic liquors are drunk for the pleasantness of their taste or for their food value.  To some slight extent these factors enter in; but neither is important.  The taste for them is for most men an acquired taste; and with so many other delicious drinks to be had, especially in recent years, drinks that are far less expensive and without their poisonous effects, it is safe to say that the mere taste of them would not go far toward explaining the lure they have for men.  As to their food value, there are those who justify themselves on the score of the nutrition they are getting from their wine or beer.  But careful experiments have shown that the food value of alcohol is slight; and certainly, for nutrition received, these are among the most expensive foods, to be ranked with caviar and pate de foie gras.  Beer is the most nutritious of the alcoholic drinks; but the same amount of money spent on bread would give about thirty times the nutrition, and a more all-round nutrition at that.  Alcoholic liquors as food are, as has been said, like gunpowder as fuel very costly and very dangerous. [Footnote:  See H. S. Williams, Alcohol, p. 133; H. S. Warner, Social Welfare and the Liquor Problem, p. 80, and bibliography, p. 95.]