Why place double standards on Alcohol and not other substances?

in drugs •  3 years ago 

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I've been thoughly in favor of letting people put whatever they want into their bodies without legal repercussions for a lot of years now. People shouldn't be punished for having a problem; the addiction is usually punishment enough.

The only drug that I've had a problem with is alcohol. My opposition to prohibition of drugs hasn't changed. What has changed is my tolerance for people treating alcohol so differently from any other drug.

Any argument for prohibition of drugs that I've encountered over the years applies to alcohol.

Alcohol can kill you. I know, I was in the hospital for a week because of my problem.

Alcohol is habit forming. I know, you would have thought that spending three days on the bathroom floor vomiting even when there's nothing in your stomach, shaking, sweating, and hallucinating would be enough to get you to put down the bottle - it's not.

Alcohol puts innocent, sober people in danger. Fortunately, that didn't happen to me. I never drove drunk and I'm really not an angry drunk; but, I've seen people who are angry drunks. It's not fun.

I blame nobody but myself for my problems. I went through a really rough time and didn't handle it well. Making it illegal probably would have just resulted in me finding another habit. I don't blame advertisers; it's pretty rare for advertising to really influence my decisions.

The double standards that people place on alcohol as opposed to other substances make zero sense to me anymore.

Beyond all of that, there's the simple fact that the war on drugs is failing, it will continue to fail, and it will continue to make the lives of people with drug problems even worse than they already were.

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