[emmab]

> Processes could be set up whereby mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists), ethicists, and the judicial system could make determinations that an individual is not competent to make decisions about the substance use purchasing due to addiction.

These would be abused. People would be told that they're categorically unable to consent for being LGBT.

[sulizilxia]

Without meaning to be dismissive, I doubt that would happen in the US at least at this point in time. And to the extent it did happen, there would be bigger problems to worry about.

Determinations of competency already happen in the US for all sorts of reasons. I'm not saying it's perfect by any means, and that it doesn't get abused, but the abuse of that system pales in comparison to abuses under the current drug enforcement and regulation system.

Personally, I am for complete unrestricted deregulation, but I can see issues around liability for providers, arguments about actual competency to decide, etc., and treating it like other forms of competency decision seems like one mechanism to address that.

Medically speaking it seems like the same situation to me as competency issues due to other forms of neuropsychological incapacitation.