[perl4ever]

You are using "legal" in a way that implies unregulated. Regulations have a large value, at least to some people. For instance, I would like to try CBD, but I don't trust that some random product will be safe and effective and have the right amount of the active ingredient. Unless it's an approved drug.

If you have regulations on drugs, then you have all the problems, to some extent, that people attribute to their illegality.

I am afraid of opioids, and I don't trust even doctors, so I never took the ones I was offered and didn't get addicted. But there must be millions of people who wouldn't trust a heroin dealer and would trust their doctor, so legality makes a big difference.

[luka-birsa]

Why would a doctor promote Heroin? If they would, especially for recreative purposes, would be very much at odds with any medical ethics. What is clear via Oxy example is that medical ethics really need to be upheld and profit taken out of the equation.

Do you see doctors promoting cigarettes? Alcohol?

I would say that your reasoning why you aren't doing CBD is highly rational. Do you really think that even if you wanted to try heroin and if you did it, it would automatically addict you? Like you're instantly gone in to the abyss?

People try heroin and nothing happens to them. Some even hate the experience. People use heroin for prolonged periods and then simply stop (non unusual in the late teens, with some kind of a trigger in the mid 20).

If there was not so much stigma involved and so much risk taking the stuff, we might see people coming out of this juvenile experimenting phase in a much much better state.

Also, do you really think that people that lifelong addicts, don't have some kind of deeper psychological reasons to go down that path?

[perl4ever]

>if you wanted to try heroin and if you did it, it would automatically addict you

I have no idea. Lots of people experiment with things and it's no big deal and they insist that must be a universal experience. There's a selection effect. If you try something at 20 and don't survive, you're not around at 40 or 80 to tell people it's no big deal.

When I was young, I enjoyed alcohol a lot, but didn't really struggle giving it up when I had to. Nor did I ever drink until blackout or vomiting, which you know, whether or not it's pathological/alcoholism, is common. I am certain that the level of compulsion is very different for some people.

I have a sibling, who I believe smoked cigarettes off and on but it never became a permanent habit. But a lot of people find them extremely addictive. I never smoked my first one, just because there was never an anticipated reward that seemed worth it. I might have been wrong, or right. Some people seem to get substantial cognitive benefits from nicotine.

Occasionally having a negative reaction to a prescription drug makes me wary of recreational or unregulated stuff, too. Seeing homeopathic stuff in the drug store makes me fearful that a CBD product might be fake too. So when I had wisdom teeth pulled and I was given a bottle of big pink pills (I think it must have been oxycodone/paracetamol based on a quick google) I didn't use a single one.