[LeoPanthera]

Do we as a society even need [alcohol|nicotine|cannabis|refined sugar|fat|salt]?

Maybe not. But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.

[sixstringtheory]

People should be free to live as unhealthily as they choose as long as the problems they inevitably create don’t negatively affect other people.

Activities high in negative externalities should be prohibitively expensive to help pay for remediation, and the opposite should be positively reinforced, even subsidized. A stitch, in time, saves nine.

[Turing_Machine]

I'm pretty sure more people have been killed by governments with too much power than have ever been killed by drinking straws.

[rayiner]

> But I refuse to believe that you asked that question in good faith, because we're obviously going to have all of them. People should be free to live as healthily or as unhealthily as they choose.

Why? Especially in a country with government-subsidized healthcare?