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> if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them, like it does for all sorts of other harmful products? That begs the quest
by zeveb 11y ago
> if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them, like it does for all sorts of other harmful products?
That begs the question: should society ban the sale of harmful products? I can buy: a sword; a gun; a packet of cigarettes; arsenic; cyanide; Doritos; Dianetics; Season 1 of Survivor and so forth. All of these things may be argued by some to be harmful (and by others not to be).
Why may I not choose to buy cocaine, LSD or marijuana as well?
- gozur88 11y agoThe reason is people take it as given if you mess yourself up the rest of us will have to pay for your treatment. If I have to pay for your mistakes, then I want some say in what you're doing. Personally, I'd rather live in a more libertarian society, where you could do whatever you want (to yourself) and accept the consequences. But that's not the society we live in.
- koide 11y agoBut alcohol and tobacco are just as harmful in the sense of having to pay for the treatments and the damage to others as the rest of the drugs. Why ignore them? It really makes no sense...
- gozur88 11y agoThere are all sorts of restrictions on alcohol and tobacco. In the US alcohol would be illegal if the government hadn't tried and failed to make it illegel.