Comment by lelanthran
2 hours ago
If alcohol was only discovered in 2026, there isn't a country in the world that would legalise it.
It's legal only because it's been grandfathered in, from before legal systems were created.
2 hours ago
If alcohol was only discovered in 2026, there isn't a country in the world that would legalise it.
It's legal only because it's been grandfathered in, from before legal systems were created.
That’s an impossible to prove opinion without changing the laws of physics. But there are some precedence we can refer to as a counterargument.
1. There have been plenty of other substances that have been banned which were legal and widely taken since before such laws existed. Demonstrating that governments are willing to control substances that were previously legal.
2. There have also been other drugs that have been legalized after they were previously banned. Proving that governments are willing to accept the risk of people taking drugs.
3. And your augment about alcohol specific actually did happen in some places. It is commonly referred to as "prohibition". And that decision never stuck.
The reality is drugs aren't legal nor illegal based on solely the harm they do. They are judged based on how easy they are to regulate (read: monetize and tax) and the subsections of society which enjoy them.
To expand on that last point: there's a reason cannabis was illegal in most countries while cigarettes weren't. And that reason wasn't because cannabis was considered more dangerous than tobacco. It's was because certain leaders wanted us to think that the people who smoked cannabis was more dangerous than the people that smoked cigarettes.