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Tobacco and alcohol are legal and used because they were staples of the founding of the US. Tobacco was one of the chief exports of the colonies and the new US
by zanny 11y ago
Tobacco and alcohol are legal and used because they were staples of the founding of the US. Tobacco was one of the chief exports of the colonies and the new US for centuries and made a lot of people rich and even more people happy.
Alcohol is legal in almost every country on Earth because you can make it out of almost everything. What might end up happening is regional fermentation variants are stigmatized.
Cannibis was persecuted and outlawed in the US because of extreme zenophobia against Mexican migrants in the US after the Mexican-American war. Heres a longer form history of it: http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-ille.... Its the same bizarre backwards thinking that leads to republican frontrunner's garnering praise for wanting to build a concrete wall on the scale of the Great Wall of China to keep impoverished refugees out.
Pot got banned because it was gaining popularity and was threatening entrenched tobacco interests. The same thing happened to opium with Chinese migrant workers. The vast majority of the "controlled substances" that are not particularly life threatening (heroin and cocaine are probably the only outstandingly dangerous ones due to immediate bodily effects, the psychedelics are dangerous because of the behavioral changes usually) but were simply outlawed because they competed with US tobacco and alcohol for consumers drug addictions and habits.
So if pot did not exist, we would probably be a similar state to where we are now - migrant Mexicans would have probably used opium or tobacco, and we have already seen the reactions to both of those in the American historical psyche. We would just probably be pushing MDMA / Meth / LSD legalization instead. Meth most likely, since it also has medical applications.
- llamataboot 11y agoMDMA and LSD also have medical applications. http://www.maps.org/ http://www.maps.org/
- moonchrome 11y ago>cocaine are probably the only outstandingly dangerous ones due to immediate bodily effects Is that true about ? I "know" that heroin ends up causing a physical addiction + all the risks with the way it's used but I was under the impression that cocaine was in the same category as speed/extasy in terms of downsides.
- zanny 11y agoJust quoting wikipedia on this one, but: Cocaine addiction occurs through accumbal ΔFosB overexpression, which arises through transcriptional regulation and epigenetic remodeling of the nucleus accumbens. It is definitely physically addictive, and alters brain chemistry through long term use. It also causes accelerated heart rate. I'll give its not nearly as bad as tobacco, but it is in a league above psychedelics.
- moonchrome 11y agoSure but MDMA/meth aren't psychedelics either but you made a distinction between them so I was curious why. From my high school experiences I would put them in the same league (although I know very little about the science behind them they are all recreational party drugs, former being a lot cheaper than the latter)
- cjhveal 11y agoThe GP was comparing cocaine to (substituted) amphetamines, which as with most dopaminergic psychostimulants also cause addiction via changes to ΔFosB expression. Hence, I'd say the comparison isn't incorrect, even if the GP's appraisal of the potential harm of speed/ecstasy may have been understated. However, ΔFosB expression is also impacted by all kinds of behaviors and substances, including palatable/calorie-dense foods, exercise, and sex. There's a lot of things that alter brain chemistry in the long term if abused.
- LordKano 11y agoThere's also the hemp angle. There had recently been advances in the production of hemp paper and the plant produced fibers that DuPont wanted to replace with Nylon. DuPont and Hearst (who had a lot of money invested in tree-based paper) had economic incentives to reduce/eliminate Hemp from our society. Hearst's yellow journalism tapped into the xenophobia and racism of the average American to convince them that this Devil's weed would have Mexicans and Negroes rampaging all across the country and having sex with white women.