Which of these kills the most people in the US every year: Guns, Sugar, Marijuana, Cigarettes, or Salt

fsdafsda wrote:

drug dealers and mexican drug cartels kill people over weed all the time.

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Israel kills people over land all the time

why worry? wrote:

I think religious people tend to be more content than non-religious folk. If an invisible being you can't see, hear or touch, is gonna make it alright as long as she submit yourself to Him....why worry?

Folks that have to get up in the morning and go to church are far less likely to be out between midnight and 2 am, the prime hours for accidental deaths.

Stating the obvious wrote:

And legalizing it (with the huge tax on it) won't stop that because there will always be a big black market for it.

That's if the tax is so high that it is worth all the effort of growing and smuggling it illegally, as well as for people to buy it illegally. It happens with cigarettes here in Europe, but the market share for illegal cigarettes is tiny. I don't think it would be a huge problem with marijuana, certainly nothing of the scale of the current "industry".

Smoking, too, kills other people by the way, not just guns.

Not Sure wrote:

fsdafsda wrote:

drug dealers and mexican drug cartels kill people over weed all the time.

.

Israel kills people over land all the time

Muslims kill people over cartoons all the time

dope is insidious

I have relatives that do it nightly and it hurt them and their kids

they are convinced it is great

that booze is worse is no defence

Blaming deaths on salt and sugar is nothing but speculation, I have eat plenty of both for over 60 years.

Guns don't kill people, I kill people.

In the 3 years after 9/11, in the United States, about 4,000 children died from child abuse and neglect; in more than 80 percent of cases, parents were the perpetrators. About 36,000 Americans died from unnecessary surgery. Another 21,000 died from medication errors in hospitals, along with another 60,000 from other errors in hospitals. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs killed about 100,000. Roughly 10,000 Americans died from accidental drowning. About 2,100 died from bicycle accidents. Homicidal Americans killing other Americans took another roughly 60,000 lives. Suicide took more than 90,000. Traffic deaths amounted to well over 120,000.

Despite all of America’s mayhem and death (more than 7,000,000 Americans died in the last three years, including the clearly avoidable ones listed above plus hundreds of thousands not listed that were at least in part avoidable), the…….

They aren't statistics if you made up the numbers in your head.

Cite your source.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

some crazy runner guy wrote:

I would also add HFC (high fructose corn syrup) to your list...

... I really don't believe that HFCS is uniquely to blame for obesity. Again, the cheapness of it is an issue...

Good points by both Sir Lance-alot and crazy runner. Perhaps the worst thing for the American diet is the approach of American food manufactures over the last 30 years, which has been to create most addicting "food" possible for the cheapest price. This has led to overuse of both HFCS, salt and fat.

Yep~ wrote:

Not Sure wrote:

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Israel kills people over land all the time

Muslims kill people over cartoons all the time

Israel hs killed tens of thousands of people over land expansion. I doubt if a dozen people have been killed by Muslims over cartoons. Yet which is the one we hear most about? Which is the one that springs to your mind?

Without doing research, but IMHO, like most posters, I say:

1.) Guns (but only when used by governments, not in private individuals hands) So guns would be 5 on the list otherwise.

2.) Sugar - over consumption of sugar is one of the leading causes of cardio disease.

3.) Cigarettes - but then again, it depends on how much additives are put into the tobacco.

4.) Marijuana - But with one caveat, probably almost no one dies directly from MJ. Most deaths occur because of the Federal Drug Laws which created a black market and drug gangs. Also a lot of folks have their lives ruined forever because a few ounces of MJ.

5.) Salt - Debatable here, but i think salt is highly over-rated as detrimental to your health. Unless you are "sodium sensitive." The issue is the balance of salt with other minerals, such as potassium and magnesium.

Was that worth $0.02?

[quote]www.666energy.com wrote:

Alcohol + Stupidity kill waaaaay more peeps than weed, salt and sugar combined.

Suprised nobody else mentioned alcohol

Smoking has to be the worst - what sort of drug does not get you high?!

Your brain needs sugar to survive...but in can get this sugar via other means (breakdown of amino acids).

During previous diets I've been (counting vegetables) down to 50g a day. Not counting vegetables I've been down to 30g a day. As long as your caloric intake is in check you can operate just fine on a low carb diet....after the initial withdrawel phase.

Zero carb would be pretty unhealthy. Low carbs....provided you are getting in enough vegetables I don't see the problem: vegetables, meats, nuts, 1 piece of fruit a day. Getting under 100g is mindlessly easy.

As far as the OP..cigarettes easy number one. Salt and Sugar you can't directly link to an actual death as you can cigarettes. Or at least I haven't seen any studies. Gun deaths in the US sit around 30,000.

Smoking?

http://rex.nci.nih.gov/NCI_Pub_Interface/raterisk/risks67.html

Marijuana as a secondary suspect?

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=145

Obesity?

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/obesity/deaths.htm

So I'm going Smoking, Sugar (obesity), Guns, Marijuana, Salt.

Alan