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Comment by rmah | Hacker News Reader

Um, to play devils advocate a bit... why can't you do that?

For the same reason you can't invent a new kind of pain killer and tell doctors and patients that it's less addictive than the existing alternatives, when you know for a fact that it is far more addictive.

The jury is still out on that one, no? As far as I know, the Sacklers et al remain free to walk the earth, and rich as ever.

Except the (over-)reaction to that is on course to be a greater problem than the one it fixed. We've essentially outlawed painkillers overnight, leaving victims even worse off than before.

Unless your primary goal was to kill the industry, and never really had the victims' best interests in mind at all.

> Unless your primary goal was to kill the industry, and never really had the victims' best interests in mind at all.

Taking a long view, one could argue that there will be less victims overall. This isn't to say that I'm in favor of making any drug illegal.

I was responding to a point in the other comment.

Now if you are asking why a company shouldn’t be able to lie and decieve the whole world about how their product will upset the entire global ecosystem then I don’t have the legalese answer for you (although this case should be helpful if you are interested).

The simple answer however is because it is wrong, unjust, irresponsible, causing harm, etc.

It's not polite.

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