4 ms·

Why shouldn't it? There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. The current situation may well be the least bad. I'm not a libertarian but ma

• zarzavat 4y ago
  The issue with alcohol in particular is a biochemical one. Ethanol is chronically slightly poisonous, but methanol is acutely very poisonous. If you drink ethanol all your life you may get cirrhosis of the liver and have elevated risks for other diseases, but if you drink even a small amount of pure methanol you’ll go blind or die. So alcohol prohibition decreases chronic disease due to less ethanol consumption, but increases acute disease due to more accidental methanol consumption. At least in populations that don’t already have strong cultural norms against alcohol consumption. Many other vices have this duality of harm, but alcohol’s is particularly one-sided.
  • danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    There are a lot of things that are bad for you. I don't think anyone drinking alcohol thinks it's good for them. It doesn't mean we shouldn't let people do it. "Free solo" or whatever it is where people climb without ropes - it's incredibly stupid and we should let people do it. Same for racing fast cars and so on and so on.
• boplicity 4y ago
  > There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. This would be a good argument if alcohol just harmed the people who use it. Unfortunately, the negative affects are wide-ranging, severely affecting many people who do not ever use alcohol. Many of the people that alcohol harms never picked any poison at all.
  • danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    "pick your poison" means "it's a choice between two or more bad choices". There is no good choice here.