Manipulative people of all ages exist, just look at how judges dress up in fancy dress wearing grey wigs and black or red garbs in order to subconsciously protect power and wisdom, at least here in the UK they do.
Its also why the UK police wear black, psychological projection of power, but laws don't recognise this subtle manipulation of the state. I know German police wear green, and I think the French police wear blue, which gives you an insight into how they want to be perceived. The US police also wear black to project power and status.
So with the fact that no country as far as I know teaches law apart from maybe Iran and other middle eastern countries, how can anyone claim to live in a democracy if they are not kept up to date with law changes, let alone debate these changes, because the public are resource burned and hand over their decision making to their democratically elected representative?
What a con trick people get tricked into that also gets people reinforcing and justifying their vote decision.
Likewise whilst some chemical consumption can alter behaviour, alcohol perhaps being the most widely known, its less widely known what prescription meds and illegal meds will do to the body and thus behaviour.
And here is the point, knowing the state dont teach people what these different chemicals will do, again how can anyone claim to live in a democracy, if they are not informed in order to make an informed decision or give informed consent.
Its extremely lazy if not deceitful of the legal system to assume that once someone turns 18, they can give informed consent to anything, knowing how widely businesses especially big businesses have things like planned obsolescence built into products and services, in order to carry out their own form of law and order.
Perhaps the reason why a definition of consciousness doesn't exist is because this would frame and lock down the narrative on informed consent, which is what much of the law hinges on in order to award punishments of sorts.
In some respects the state treats the public like a dog, it throws it a stick, the dog chases after it, and happens to fall off a cliff with the owner blaming the dog for its mistake.
A simple example to combat the intellectual warfare some parts of society like to rein down on the public.