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I was just highlighting a benefit not saying it was a positive overall. The point was saying it's more beneficial than alcohol. You're argument on smoking seems to be it has zero benefits but I put to you that alcohol is the more harmful drug overall when considering both physical and societal health.
I don't drink, but I really don't understand how people cannot see or care about the issues alcohol have brought. This country (UK) clearly has a huge drinking problem and it's just been accepted as part of our culture. I remember Richard Hammond did a show on drinking in the early 00s and it was a real eye opener to how bad it is here.

In short, he was jumping around city to city from country to country at night to see how people drink. He then came back to the UK and it was a damn war zone in comparison. People throwing up, crying, fighting, on the floor, police throwing people into cars and ambulances on standby. It's just madness that it's just accepted as okay.

Then there's the other side of it. The more casual drinkers who live in the pub and spout utter nonsense and stir trouble with their "words of wisdom". These people tend to cause a lot more personal harm in the communities with lies and advice that's completely wrong.
 
I see I contributed to this thread way back at the start, 16 years ago! I said back then that I'd recently quit smoking, well at that point I couldn't get rid of the craving for nicotine. Every time I'd go to a pub, or someone smoked around me I'd despirately crave a cig.

I ended up smoking again after a particularly stressful spell at uni, then switched to e-cigs before they were really a thing for a couple more years. I know the verdict on e-cigs is another hot topic, but I found that they really helped me ween off nicotine prooerly, to the point that I've fully quit smoking for around 10 years now, and have next to zero cravings. I've bummed the odd rolly here and there on night out, but I've tended to regret it immediately afterwards. The nicotine rush of a ciggarette after not smoking for years though! Not a particularly nice rush either, but it's a lot stronger than I remembered, really hits you for a few mins!
 
I was just highlighting a benefit not saying it was a positive overall. The point was saying it's more beneficial than alcohol. You're argument on smoking seems to be it has zero benefits but I put to you that alcohol is the more harmful drug overall when considering both physical and societal health.
Yes, I know. I am only saying from my perspective about alcohol compared to smoking. We live in a hypocritical society. I don't deny that. I think the point is addiction. Personally I know I won't be addicted to alcohol, but others can be and this is harmful to society. I don't agree with our culture of getting smashed anymore.

I am sure there are those who can have the odd cigarette as well and not be addicted to it. But I have also come across a lot of smokers who are liars and say they have given up but then secretly return to it.

Am I sorry this law on smoking to phase it out for those born post 2009 has been passed - no. Would I be against alcohol being prohibited - of course. It's not reconcilable.
 
I just find it funny that, as a society, the one drug we make legal (and even more than that, market and sell very well with little to no push back about how bad it is for you) is one of the most, if not the most, harmful drug in the world. Go figure.
 
Largely because it's the oldest drug, and probably pre-dates modern humans; consequently is deeply embedded in every society.
It's not that it's been made legal, it's never been made illegal (in most places).

Along with cannabis & opium, it's also one of the few that can be made at home with very little, and unlike those 2, nothing that would raise any alarms. Using ingredients that are native in every country in the world (possibly excepting some desert nations).
 
Largely because it's the oldest drug, and probably pre-dates modern humans; consequently is deeply embedded in every society.
It's not that it's been made legal, it's never been made illegal (in most places).

Along with cannabis, it's also one of the few that can be made at home with very little, and unlike cannabis, nothing that would raise any alarms.
Older than mushrooms and cannabis use? Not sure about that but probably not much in it either way. Difference is Alcohol is about a million times more harmful to you than mushrooms and mushrooms actually have benefits unlike alcohol.
 
This is getting to whataboutery here. Move it to the Booze thread.
 
Older than mushrooms and cannabis use? Not sure about that but probably not much in it either way. Difference is Alcohol is about a million times more harmful to you than mushrooms and mushrooms actually have benefits unlike alcohol.
'shrooms - probably, cannabis - definitely.

If nothing else, alcohol would have been being consumed before humanity left Africa (and almost certainly before humanity became "human"), whilst cannabis is Asian.
I don't know about mushrooms, but I thought they were more European.
 
'shrooms - probably, cannabis - definitely.

If nothing else, alcohol would have been being consumed before humanity left Africa (and almost certainly before humanity became "human"), whilst cannabis is Asian.
I don't know about mushrooms, but I thought they were more European.
Possibly and I guess this is something we'll likely never know but I wouldn't mind betting that cannabis use pre dates history as chucking some herb on a fire is just such a simple process just as eating a wild mushroom is but maybe it pre dates alcohol maybe not, it's certainly not a hill I'm looking to die on. I'm more concerned why these were made illegal but alcohol hasn't and I don't find "because alcohol is an old drug" to be a very satisfying answer personally especially when you look at where a lot of our current views on cannabis come from (Nixon in the last 60s and 70s.)
 
Of course it predates history (though cannabis being eaten likely predates throwing the stuff on the fire by quite a long way). But it doesn't pre-date the migration of humans from Africa to Not-Africa.

Alcohol is caused by honey or berries being discovered later than fresh - which predates the existence of Homo Sapiens (and thus, locked into the African continent).

We're talking about the difference between "probably the last 8-10 thousand years" versus "probably the last few million years".
Not just great apes, but monkeys and other animals get drunk in the wild. None eat things that aren't growing where they live.

IF I'm right about the origin of cannabis and amanita(?) 'shrooms.

And I'm not trying to satisfy you that the length of pre-historical use is WHY alcohol "was legalised"; I'm making a suggestion that it's longevity and ubiquity mean that it's only ever been "illegalised" in relatively small locations in geography and history. And it's much more the ubiquity - the rest is more something that interests me, and me realising I haven't communicated my meaning well enough.

Alcohol is (close to) ubiquitous with humanity as for long periods of time, it was the only safe way on consuming fluids. That's never been the case with cannabis, opium, or any of the other ancient drugs.
It's one thing to ban something that has obvious harms and is only used by a relatively small percentage of society (opium), a relatively small percentage of society who are the "other" to those in power (cannabis); or a larger percentage, but still minority when backed with decades of evidence of harm to both the user and non-user and decades of evidence of societal expenditure mopping up after it (tobacco) than it is to ban something used by the (vast) majority, including your political supporters when the evidence of harm is less scary (sorry, the word "cancer" is more scary than the word "cirrhosis"), evidence of harm to others is indirect rather than direct (it's the drunk person, not the alcohol that causes the harm), and the decades of societal expenditure mopping up afterwards simply costs less (typically property damage and relatively short-term injuries rather than decades worth of care for each individual).

None of which means that alcohol is safer than tobacco, or that one should be banned and the other allowed. It's an attempt to provide A POTENTIAL / PARTIAL answer (or at least, adding some nuance) to the question of "why the one drug we make legal is one of the most, if not the most, harmful drug in the world"
 
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Hasn't the out Africa theory being heavily disputed recently with people thinking mass movements out of Asia is likely? I genuinely don't know.

I wouldn't even mind betting that hemp and mushroom use pre dates Homo sapiens and you had Chimps getting smashed (stoned ape theory anyone? lol)

Only joking, as I say not a hill I'm willing to do on but care to address my point about the legality of it. Drugs like cannabis and mushrooms have only really been made illegal in recent years my initial question is why them and not alcohol and coming back with "because alcohol is old and has never been illegal" isn't satisfying when there were centuries, millennia even, when the same applied for cannabis and mushrooms (and just about any other drug)
 
Sorry didn't see your edit.
Sorry, I tend to do that - especially if I forget to hit "refresh" and realise that my post has been replied to; I'll just keep seeing my post at the bottom of the page, and edit rather than starting a new post.

But...
No, the "out of Africa" theory is not seriously disputed. It's disputed by Chinese Exceptionalists only; and disbelieved by basically everyone else (as far as I've seen - I'm a fascinated laymen when it comes to this stuff).
The chances are the evidence the Chinese Exceptionalists cling to is evidence of interbreeding between Homo Sapiens and other ancient branches of the Homo genus (much like the interbreeding with Homo Neanderthalensis in Europe).

ETA: Oh, it's also disputed by godbotherers, but... yeah.
 
Sorry, I tend to do that - especially if I forget to hit "refresh" and realise that my post has been replied to; I'll just keep seeing my post at the bottom of the page, and edit rather than starting a new post.

But...
No, the "out of Africa" theory is not seriously disputed. It's disputed by Chinese Exceptionalists only; and disbelieved by basically everyone else (as far as I've seen - I'm a fascinated laymen when it comes to this stuff).
The chances are the evidence the Chinese Exceptionalists cling to is evidence of interbreeding between Homo Sapiens and other ancient branches of the Homo genus (much like the interbreeding with Homo Neanderthalensis in Europe).

ETA: Oh, it's also disputed by godbotherers, but... yeah.
Ok that's all I need to know, I'm team "out of Africa" still then. lol.
 

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