> perhaps std::mem::forget should be marked unsafe It was in the past IIRC. The problem is that there are multiple ways to leak resources in safe Rust (e.g. cr

> perhaps std::mem::forget should be marked unsafe It was in the past IIRC. The problem is that there are multiple ways to leak resources in safe Rust (e.g. creating `Rc` cycles), and the compiler cannot prevent them all. So leaking is safe, and because it's also useful sometimes, `std::mem::forget()` and friends (e.g. `Box::leak()`) are also safe. That being said, it is pretty hard to accidentally leak memory.