飲酒和吸煙對個人健康都有significant影響。 可能因為人人有時都想飲幾杯放鬆下,二來又是餐飲文化的重要一環, 是大生意, 所以一向只有人禁煙無人去禁酒。

Q. 以吸煙和飲酒比較，其實客觀來講，飲酒對人的禍害較大，
飲酒最大害處是亂性，酗酒的人通常失去理智，包括醉酒駕車撞死人、打老婆仔女(當然也有打老公打男友)、醉酒打鬥、數不盡的害處，而且酒精也會嚴重傷身(以烈酒為甚)，飲酒多的人通常一定肝有事，但常說吸煙致肺癌，問題係好多肺癌患者又不是煙民，甚至無數高血壓的人都非煙民，這就很奇怪，聽過不止一次鼓吸禁煙的人說「我爺爺吸了成世煙，八十幾歲終於被香煙奪走生命」，我心諗，大佬你八十幾歲，都應該拜拜啦下話？？酒類是大生意，很難想象全球所有食肆酒店、所有零售一律禁酒，對全球的經濟會造成什麼樣的災難.....

A. You are damn right. Drinking must lead to brain and liver damage, not to mention crime and aggression associated with the disinhibition and impulsivity and those traffic accident. My view is that because majority if not all of us like to have a bit of drink every so often. On the contrary, the majority of us don't smoke. Even without the big money, just playing on the selfish gene, the public tends to be more lenient on alcohol regulation. So, there is no absolute right or wrong ....

Q. 但禁煙的人可能會飲酒.

A. Yeap. Smoking does associate with health issues, it increases the likelihood of different diseases, for example lung cancer (probability). 

But people with different genetic endowments will have different protective factors against the carcinogenic effects. DNA will mutate, for a healthy cell there are mechanisms to correct these errors. With aging, these mechanisms fail one after another (so as with other psychological/environmental factors), then the chance of forming a survivable cancer cell will increase. So for individuals, smoking does not guarantee you to have cancer, etc. 

On the contrary, substance abuse (excessive alcohol consumption is one form) can cause neuronal damage as well as liver cell damage - it is a dosage-effect relationship. But it also depends on whether the individual has certain variant of liver enzyme that can metabolize alcohol faster. A greater proportion of Westerners have more of this "fast" liver alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme, so they can drink more without feeling sick and sustain more long-term harmful effects paradoxically. i.e. those who do not easily get drunk got more health problem usually as they drink more in total (if they have alcohol dependence).