The same types of lies support most prohibitions

by Dr. Carl Phillips, CASAA Science Director

Dick Puddlecote just posted a nice analysis of the annoying tendency of cannabis users to attack tobacco (and alcohol) use and users, motivated in part by a misguided notion that by joining the attack on other drugs they will somehow make their own drug more respectable. As DP points out, this is very unlikely to serve their cause, and that the better strategy would be to join an alliance opposed to all prohibitions of moderately hazardous individual choices. Appeasement of the oppressors is seldom a useful strategy for more than a few minutes.

I would add to that the following: The exact same lies - junk science, hyping of moderate or trivial risks, scary claims about “chemicals”, hyperbole about cost burdens imposed on others, scapegoating of a minority, etc. - are embedded in the “anti” movements across all of these behaviors.  So not only does appeasement tend to empower the extremists, who move between attacking one behavior they personally disapprove of to another (basically depending on where they can get paid to do it), but it further institutionalizes the lies that can be used to support prohibitionism.  [Read More]