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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Where is it the only legal drug? Nicotine is often regulated but legal nearly everywhere, and I don't think caffeine is banned anywhere.

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I get this is (mostly) a tech site, but do we have to argue semantics every time?

I don't think this is a semantic argument. The comment I replied to was making the argument that alcohol use is widespread because it has no legal competition. This does not appear to be the case to me, thus undermining the argument.

If someone gets off work and wants to get loaded to forget about their problems, are they more likely to get a 12-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes?

Both

You are right about availability of nicotine and caffeine but I'm not sure if you can make an argument that they could compete with alcohol.

I know that caffeine was a bit of competition for alcohol in the period right after it was introduced (some think that enlightenment was caused by this), but I don't think it's like that anymore.

Nicotine and caffeine are drugs but when did you last hear of people crashing cars or killing other people because they were high on nicotine or caffeine. I'm sure it's an ancillary factor and if you could investigate with strict accuracy you'd find they had a non-zero influence. But putting them on the same semantic plane as you are doing implies that people in the grip of a nicotine or caffeine buzz are little different from people who are drunk, and anyone with real-world experience knows that's nonsense. You're not helping your point by reflexively making nitpicking arguments.

I'm pro legalization for all drugs, but but I'm not going to dispute the fact that booze, cocaine, and heroin are just like cannabis, caffeine and nicotine because it just isn't true. If you don't acknowledge the reality of people's experience when making your semantic arguments then people are going to ignore you.

I agree with what you say, but that means alcohol is more damaging because it's more dangerous, not because it has no competition.

I agree 100% with you on the substantive issue.

It's not a semantic argument. It's important to make it plain, before having a reasoned discussion, that there are legal drugs that people use every day but wrongly categorizes as "not drugs." Alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine being the main culprits. Food, exercise, and social media also cause experience-shifting changes in neurotransmitters (the drugs that are always mediating your experience). It's important to get this straight before lumping things that are illegal into a poorly-conceived category.

Air also causes experience shifting changes in body. Think of the last time you went without it. Also thoughts cause multiple experience shifts during the day. Maybe we should start be controlling the air and eliminating thoughts before we get to these bigger things?

Just to set the record straight can you cite where social media causes experience-shifting changes in neurotransmitters?

everything does. it's a question of individual context, individual biology, and what you define as "experience-shifting" + our ability to understand and measure the human brain.

https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/feeding...

here's some BS from the AMA, though.

While it is true that there are other substances that could and should be called drugs, it is not conducive to discussion to argue over definitions when it is clear people are talking about drugs colloquially. To bring up coffee serves no purpose other than to derail the comment thread - as it has.

Added sugar

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