Do us a favor, snookums, don’t be so long-winded, m’kay?

Your hobby is causing you some REALLY bad breath, see?

I AM gratified to know that I could toss out a gratuitous insult WEEKS ago, and here you are, still carrying it around and obsessing on it here on a dead thread like a major psychic wound.

People needlessly (?) under the influence of alcohol abuse cause a lot of problems for the rest of us. Alcohol isn’t illegal.

Let me first emphasize that I’ve not said the solution to rampant ‘legal’ drug abuse by the medical community – which results in some 100,000 deaths and 2M hospitalizations annually – and that’s for the ‘properly’ prescribed medications – is to change our behavior toward drugs like marijuana, hash and coke. I agree with you: the two realms are, in fact, orthogonal.

What’s hypocritical is to accept the damage inflicted by the former – simply because it is economically beneficial to a powerful pharmaceutical and medical professional lobby – while pretending that damage inflicted by the latter, typically far less in magnitude if it weren’t for the arbitrary illegality, is somehow socially unacceptable.

All of our social experience with illegal drugs – the cost of law enforcement (including the dangers to which LEOs are exposed), the behaviors of those who buy, use and sell them and the criminals created by the arbitrary designation of those substances as ‘illegal’ – is bound up in the fact that they have been declared illegal. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing. This experience needs to be considered separately from these drugs’ inherent, physiologically destructive effects, if such effects exist.

Marijuana and hashish are no more inherently ‘destructive’ of a drug than alcohol – considerably less so, in fact. Cocaine, while it does possess inherently destructive qualities akin to alcohol (i.e., when abused in the same manner), isn’t inherently destructive. What’s destructive is how it’s used – or abused – which is a personal choice, no different from the choice involved in alcohol or other legal substance abuse. What’s most destructive in cases of drug addiction – as opposed to alcohol addiction – is the economic effect caused by the cost of the drugs themselves (arbitrarily inflated because their illegal nature constricts supply), and the social effect inherent in using them because they’re illegal (i.e., using them can make you a criminal if you’re caught buying, using or selling them).

Ever seen the destruction of a life caused by addiction to aerosol inhalants? It’s potentially as bad as addiction to heroin. Should we make aerosols illegal simply because they can be abused? If so, that same rationale can be use to justify repealing the Second Amendment, since firearms can be – and often are – abused. If not, why should cocaine or marijuana be treated differently? In short, it doesn’t make any rational sense to make a substance illegal because of the way SOME people use or abuse it. It’s just a socially accepted ‘standard’ that has become conventional wisdom with no inherent validity.

We have NO recent experience with so-called ‘recreational’ drugs as legal substances, therefore it is impossible to judge their deleterious effects in the context of contemporary society, were they to be legalized.

People of this dear board, please know that I’m sure Bilgepump is a fabulous individual, a great American and patriot wheel-barrowing around with him an intellect that strains the talents of Pythagoras himself.

Ah, perhaps that’s it! The Greek connection. I hear that culture was rife with Bilgepumpian behavior. Are you sure your name isn’t really Bilgepumpakokis? No matter. I look forward to you providing more insights into your very curious and glorious obsession. We now know there is spitting and buckets and men named Peter involved. Pray, do continue Bilgepump – share your experience with this odd custom – enlighten us further.

You’re like a combination of Cliff Clavin and Ted Haggart. Fascinating, really. you might be able to earn a few extra bucks volunteering your proclivities for study by 1st-year residents in psychiatry.