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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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The axis of that tweet says "unnatural death". It seems at least plausible that this would include drunken people inadvertently killing themselves by falling of a bridge or running into traffic.

The curfews seem like a massive confounder. We can compare the July ban (750/week) with the post ban period (1100/week), as there was a curfew in both of these going on. The only thing which we can learn from this plot, however, is that during curfews, alcohol bans seem to decrease unnatural mortality.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Take a young person who likes to drink occasionally, who is probably a part of some party culture. Now tell them they can not party until further notice. Sometimes, they will adopt well to it, forswear partying and getting really into video gaming. But sometimes they will become depressed and self-medicate with alcohol. Without any drinking buddies providing social oversight and making sure that they don't choke to death on their vomit or kill their spouses or roommates, an increase in alcohol-related mortality should be expected.

Also, 350 additional alcohol-related death per week are not a huge number. South Africa has a population of 62M. Mortality rates generally go in the order of a percent a year. The yearly excess mortality from alcohol would be a whopping 0.03%, with 3% of the deaths being attributable to alcohol. This is roughly equal to the deaths from lung cancer (overwhelmingly caused by tobacco) of 0.037% per year. Long-term effects of liver failure due to booze are likely a bit lower.

I am generally opposed to telling people how to run their lives to get rid of these risks. I don't drink or smoke, but at some point the health police might come for me either for rock climbing or spending weekends playing video games, and I would want there to speak out for me.