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> is an acceptable excuse No, it's not. Going with your flawed example: having an addiction to heroin should be a socially acceptable problem, or at least one

• soylentcola 11y ago
  Exactly. To put it in terms of currently legal drugs, it's not illegal to be an alcoholic. You won't be imprisoned for the compulsive use of alcohol, regardless of the framework used to describe it (poor impulse control, chemical imbalance, whatever). But if you go beat someone up or crash your car while drunk, you're charged with those crimes, whether committed due to your addiction or not. But outside of actual crimes committed against others in society, just being in possession of alcohol or being an addict isn't illegal. Additionally, there are resources for people who want to improve their dealings with alcohol or work out the issues that are causing their problems with it. They can make use of these resources without fear of being arrested because mere possession and use isn't a crime. I don't claim that habitual use of opiates or amphetamines or whatever is a positive thing but putting someone at risk of criminal penalties and prison because of something that is (at worst) very unhealthy is sort of preposterous when you think about it that way. That doesn't mean we ought to turn a blind eye to crimes committed under the influence or in search of one's dose but at a minimum, possession and use ought not to be criminal offenses.