[spruciefic399]

People drink bleach to cure autism. Should we ban bleach?

First, there's a difference between allowing the sale and distribution of a substance at all and selling it with a claim. All I would say is that [almost?] no substance's sale should be banned. Maybe taxed or something.

Second, this is going to sound harsh to some, but I think at some point, if someone buys arsenic to cure baldness, it's their responsibility.

It's fairly common for people to seek expert advice on something not because it's legally mandated, but because there is a culture and individual understanding that something is outside of your ability/skill to do without severe negative consequences. I have someone else do my taxes because I don't want to screw something up. You can represent yourself in a court of law, but in most/many cases it's inadvisable. If I need to have certain things done on my house, I hire an expert because I don't want to cause damage and/or injury. I think a similar cultural norm needs to exist regarding substances and health care more broadly.

To me there's something fundamentally illogical about the current approach to drugs, because if taken to its logical conclusion, it involves banning people from purchasing any substance unless they have appropriate credentials. The government just allows exceptions to the logic (e.g, alcohol, household chemicals, etc.) because to enforce it would lead to a lot of uproar. That seems really legally unsound to me. The more sound approach would look totally different.

[saagarjha]

> People drink bleach to cure autism. Should we ban bleach?

No, but we should stop anyone from trying to sell bleach as an autism cure.