[Everlag]

Why are things illegal? In the most purely naive idea, it is because government is supposed to prevent us from damaging ourselves. Tobacco and liquor are damaging things, they are literally poisons. Caffeine is also damaging.

I would be personally be much more inclined to believing the scientists whose entire career is the study of these illegal substances rather than the politicians who have to continue pushing the old ideals of "this is the line and we do not move the line because that would be an immoral attack on the fabric of society". Do you know why cannabis is known as marijuana? The reason is the old guard felt that cannabis was not foreign enough and changed it to something a wee bit more scary.

If you can put out a well reasoned argument against legalization then fine. If you will fall back to the standard catch all of 'its illegal!' then we have nothing discuss for you cannot present a reasonable argument.

[sanoli]

I never said it should or shouldn't be illegal. I'm saying that if you use the word "drugs" the way it was used in the parent, then 99% of everyone will understand it as being referred to illegal drugs.

edit: spelling error

[Nursie]

Right, but the article and the rest of us are saying that that is arbitrary and unhelpful and we really ought to stop it if we're ever going to have an adult conversation about all this.