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Comment by mattip | Hacker News Reader

While every death is a tragedy, 150 per year makes the phenomenon quite the outlier. For perspective, cancer takes over 500,000 lives a year in the US [1]. And lightning kills around 50 [2].

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

[2] http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fatalities.htm

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the difference, unlike cancer, is we know how to nearly completely prevent those 150/year (and 70k associated hospitalizations)... it's just it puts a big dent in a private company's earnings and we have the best congress that money can buy. fta

   The German government reported four deaths from acetaminophen poisoning in 
   2010, the same year the CDC put the American total at 321. The U.S. 
   population is four times that of Germany.

Germany has strict controls on acetaminophen.

Yet 85000 people die each year of alcohol abuse. Legalizing marijuana as a substitute for alcohol would save thousands of lives each year. I would pick my battles, this issue seems very minor in comparison to the real problems.

MDMA would be a much better substitute for alcohol, since it doesn't cause long-term cognitive impairment or lung cancer.

Of course, I don't encourage anyone to use drugs that are currently illegal, since what you're getting is not pure.

Either way, it's off-topic.

MDMA would be a much better substitute for alcohol

I think you are seriously misunderstanding the normal use case for alcohol.

I'm not sure it has stricter controls (think you can buy it OTC, too, but not 100% sure), but it also has better health insurance for everyone. Perhaps that could be a factor - people are more likely to see a physician before overdosing on pain killers?

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