Old fashioned drugs

Like I posted earlier, one of my favorite tv shows was, and still is 'Little House on the Prairie'. I was just watching an episode today, part I of II, that dealt with Albert's drug addiciton. Yep, even way back in the 1800's and early 1900's teens still struggled with peer pressure and drug abuse. Oh the drugs weren't quite as complex as they are today, but one of the biggies is still one of the biggies today--Morphine. Back then it wasn't 'illegal' exactly. The acts that drug addiction lead to were though. Primarily theft. It started me thinking about why drugs are, or aren't illegal today. It's pretty much the same... the big illegal drugs are just that because they usually involve the larger chance of someone else getting hurt, and/or the user stealing.

It kinds of makes me wonder why alcohol isn't against the law. I mean alcoholics have been known to steal to support the habit. They've been known to be physically abusive, and they've been known to kill others either through outright violence, or in a second hand type of way through driving while drunk, etc.

On the other hand, cigarettes--another big addiction--isn't illegal yet, but they seem to be heading that way quickly. However, that addiction doesn't normally lead to theft, or physical violence, and rarely impacts anyone else but the user themselves. Oh lobbyiests against cigarettes will scream about second hand smoke, but I really think the only reason cigarettes aren't illegal is that the second hand smoke theory is really kind of thin. People distrust the 'scientific' evidence based on the fact that science has been so wrong so often about what does, and doesn't cause cancer. There are some even that will refute evidence that claims cigarettes cause cancer at all even in primary users saying that why do not ALL smokers get cancer--a great many do, but there are those that do not as well... and there are plenty of cancer sufferers who never touched tobacco. There, some will proclaim is the evidence that second hand smoke causes cancer--not really. No more than cars, factories, coal dust... oh, and lets not forget the much slimmer probabilities of scientific proclamations like shopping cart handles, cell phones, and hard candy. Well maybe hard candy wasn't ever one, but I"m sure they'd like it to be. What are the actual chances that a non-smoker will inhale a lungfull of smoke from a smoker? Hardly any unless they're sitting right across from them a few feet away and the smoker is ignorant enough to blow the smoke right in their faces--even then, it's a one time shot unless the non-smoker is a moron.

The likelihood of similarities to lab-type experiments where little rats are subjected to 'roomfulls' of smoke (which is the equivalent of a glassed in shoebox filled with smoke) hardly the same ratio of most rooms humans inhabit unless they're in a jail cell are millions to one.

Drugs can be bad for the users... horrible even, but the real horror is what they do to those around the users. If there isn't any real impact... it's not a threat.