Questioning Statistics

According to the expert report from the American Institute for Cancer Research, Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective, there is convincing evidence that alcohol increase the risk of cancer of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus. The risk of upper respiratory tract cancer is greatly increased if drinkers also smoke.  When you drink alcohol, the sensitive tissues of your upper-respiratory tract are directly exposed to alcohol in beverages, causing damage to cells and possibly initiating cancer.
Ref:  http://www.healthcastle.com/alcoholandcancer.shtml

So…I began to wonder about the smoking statistics.  Do we know how many smokers dying of cancer also drank? Does anyone know if there are stats like that? I couldn’t find anything that got to the real crux of the matter, that being from previous and supposed smoking-related deaths, how many of those deaths were of smokers who drank?

During my Internet “travels” looking for this information, I did stumble onto another interesting tidbit from Canada:

Alcohol is the ‘drug of choice’ for Canadians, with 60% of Ontario adults consuming alcohol on at least a monthly basis. The direct and indirect costs to society of alcohol abuse are substantial: $5.3 billion in Ontario alone, second only to the social burden of tobacco. This burden takes into effect the cardioprotective effects of alcohol, which, unlike its link to cancer, has received a great deal of public attention.
Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070926094722.htm

Social burdens??? Good grief.