I have also been to Peru where I was woken each day with a hot cup of coca tea and I could buy packaged coca leaves in the supermarkets.
I think "most societies" treat psychoactive substances with respect and toleration and view the over-consumption or inappropriate use as a disease that needs treatment. It is only a few social outliers that do not.
I’m amazed at how many of my friends have MMJ cards or go to recreation stores and have no problem with their ID being scanned — fully unaware that they’re permanently rescinding their 2nd amendment rights so that they can get a little high.
This (IMO) is why Biden is unlikely to support federal legalization of pot, by the way. They want to keep it on the books with decriminalization and unenforcement policies so the ATF policy stays in place.
Anyway, my broader point is that buying marijuana, even in legal states, is not at all the same as buying beer or tea. You’re not made a second class citizen by buying tea or beer.
The problem is: Alcohol is available to anyone, whether corner stores offer it or not. Just take your favorite type of fruit and let it rot. So alcohol being legal is probably also a consequence of the fact that it is very hard to forbid. (Case in point: The Prohibition.)
Fermentation simply requires a warm dark place to take place (the darker the better). Which means you can EASILY ferment a lot of alcohol with very little input.
Weed, on the other hand, is a plant. Plants need light and water (and quite a bit of it). This is why weed gets busted so frequently. Small scale is harder to detect, but large scale weed growth has a BUNCH of tell tale signs.
Cannabis plants are also rather... fragrant. Large illicit grows often have a duct and fan system to try to deal with it.
> Historians say drinking was heaviest in the early 1800s, with estimates that in 1830 the average U.S. adult downed the equivalent of 7 gallons a year.
> These days it’s about 2.3 gallons, according to federal calculations. That works out to nearly 500 drinks, or about nine per week.
This is probably why alcohol was known since ancient times. I'll cite: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_drinks] [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/02/alcohol-...]
Libertarianish Tallinn 90 kms away seemed to cope better.
It is a great hypocrisy that some substances are so vilified and criminalized while others are sold openly to great profit. I have a feeling it simply has to do with _who_ stood to benefit the most when those substances first became known.
It will take a lot of work to correct but with good education and open minds we’ll get there.