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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

Can we stop with the downplaying when it comes to drugs?

Drugs should be guilty until proven innocent. Comments like these attempt to make them innocent until proven guilty. History has shown that there are very few "safe" recreational drugs.

This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.

"My mom died of cancer from smoking tobacco"

"Sorry about your mom, but I want to point out this is anecdotal. Can tobacco lead to cancer in people who are prone to it genetically? Or are people that are genetically prone to cancer drawn to tobacco? Or does it affect everyone? Lots of big unknowns here, so let's play it safe and not jump to any conclusions about the harm tobacco potentially may cause."

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I'm looking forward to people talking about "Big Weed" in 20 years with the contempt currently reserved for "Big Tobacco."

It won't be weed's fault when that's the case. Weed is a lot different from tobacco in every way.

>This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.

With tobacco use, there was a huge amount if money spent selling the public on the idea that it wasn't dangerous. In contrast, there has been a large amount of money spent selling the idea that marijuana is incredibly dangerous. More accurate conversations would be

"My mom died of lung cancer"

"I'm sorry to hear that, would you like one if my doctor recommended cigarettes? Marlboro published a study saying smoking helps grieving people with no side effects."

Compared to

"My mother has schizophrenia"

"It's her fault for smoking marijuana. At least they locked up your father for selling it."

Meanwhile we all keep ignoring that the booze industry has worked tirelessly to make sure we use the phrase "drugs and alcohol" so alcohol isn't recognized as a drug by most of the population

Is the booze industry doing that? Or do people do that as a form of rationalization to convince themselves that they aren't regular drug users?

Yes, and even more damning is the language used by DARE:

> D.A.R.E. America's Commitment to Prevention In its 35 year history, D.A.R.E. America has constantly improved its science and evidence based education programs to provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to resist drugs, alcohol, and other high risk behaviors.

Alcohol gets classified as separate from drugs. Wouldn't want kids telling their parents to not do drugs, right? And if their parents drink, that would just signal drugs are OK... etc etc

> Drugs should be guilty until proven innocent.

For a meme war maybe, but for those of us who decide based on facts, their precise safety is unknown until proven otherwise.

> History has shown that there are very few "safe" recreational drugs.

What history is this, and for what specific definition of the word "safe"?

> This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.

Perhaps, but pardon me if that doesn't motivate me to hop on board the anti-science train.

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