[renewiltord]

A friend of mine calls this Suffering Theology. Anything that might bring pleasure is bad. It's why so many medical justifications had to be made to make marijuana legal. It's why we have to say "oh, shrooms heal depression" or whatever shit before we can decriminalize.

There is a deep Puritanism that ramifies through America. Suffering is necessary. Pain is necessary.

[short_sells_poo]

I'd say it's likely much more banal than that. There are armies of bureaucrats and agents whose livelihood and source of influence is rooted in the war on drugs. It is against their interests to go easy.

[ufmace]

There's probably some of that. But this also reminds me of SSC's Against Against Pseudoaddiction[0]. Seems like some people really really want to be able to say, oooh I caught me a drug addict, nice try you lousy addict!

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...