[Lady Sidhe]

Been there, done that.

I personally think it should be legalized. Having had to take psychopharmacology classes for my psych degree, I know that drugs such as weed and acid aren't as harmful to the body as alcohol is.

The legal drugs, such as tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, are ALL physically and psychologically addictive, and cause a tolerance in users (translating into more money for the companies who sell them). Certain illegal drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, are not physically (though they can be psychologically) addictive, and do not cause tolerance in users. I was even told, albeit grudgingly, by my psychopharmacology instructor, that LSD is basically a seratonin reuptake inhibitor. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Acid is basically an antidepressant....

Why is alcohol, which is highly addictive, physically dangerous (it can cause long and short term memory loss, cirrhosis of the liver, retrograde amnesia; and, due to lowered inhibitions, is a cause of drunk driving, murder, spread of STD's, alcohol poisoning and interpersonal abuse) legal, when a drug such as marijuana, (which can cause short term memory loss; is not a statistically significant cause of violence in users; which can have at least as much of a medicinal application as the cocaine sometimes used in dentist's offices; and whose overdose isn't fatal as alcohol overdoses can be) is not?

If the criteria for the legality of a drug is its level of dangerousness to the human organism, then alcohol should top the list of illegal drugs. While I'm not advocating drugs--legal or illegal--I AM showing the arbitrary nature by which drugs are deemed legal or illegal by the government. The criteria for legality would seem to be: a high level of addictiveness, a high potential for creating revenue, and high controllability/regulatory nature (for example, it's harder for a regular Joe to grow tobacco than it is for him to grow weed. Therefore, weed is made illegal, and tobacco is made both legal and more addictive with chemicals--high addictiveness, high revenue, high controllability). Ta-da!


Sidhe