Review of "Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health" by David Nutt

I like what David Nutt writes about other recreational drugs - he's sensible rather than sensationalist and gives good evidence-based advice.

I knew he was a bit down on alcohol, and since I don't think of myself as having a problem with it, and quite like it, I was reluctant to read this book.

But I'm glad that I did. I learned a lot, both about how alcohol works in the brain, and how really bad it is. I don't think I will stop drinking completely, but I am really going to try to drink less, and to examine my own relationship with the drug, and with other people where it's mediated by alcohol.

Towards the end he writes a lot about policy, and his experiences trying to advise government. That is really...dispiriting. It's an eloquent description of how a moderately powerful industry captures the institutions intended to regulate it, and writes policies that suit itself despite the harm that they do to society and individuals. It's particularly depressing to see how much worse the UK has done than other countries, and how useless our legislators and governments are. And this is only the drinks industry...just think what it is like to go up against the fossil fuels industries.

It's also an illustration of how daft the conspiracy nut-jobs view of the world is. Powerful industries don't have to use secret conspiracies to control governments - they can do it right out in the open, using mechanisms that are not secret or illegal.