Drugs: The Legalization Debate

[Uboat509]

Wrong. By clinical definition, if you are having a drink or two every day, you are an alcohol abuser, period.

That's interesting because most of the literature that I have read states that one drink a day is beneficial and is, in fact, suggested. I'm having trouble making the jump from one drink a day is beneficial to two is abuse. Both of my parents were alcoholics. I would have loved for them to only have had one or two drinks a day. I'm not sure that just having x number of drinks per day is as useful a definition of abuse as a need to have those drinks.

alcohol and nicotine have greater addictive qualities then most "hard" drugs. It is the effect of the drug on the body after long-term use that determines wether a drug is "soft" or "hard", not it's addictive quality. Of course by that standard, Alcohol is a "hard" drug.
Reed

I did not say that addictive quality was what determines whether a drug is hard or soft. I was only stating that many hard drugs, cocaine and its derivatives, meth and opiates in particular, are highly addictive. And yes they are highly damaging to the body, even over the short term.

Nicotine is not really relevant to this discussion. While it is addictive it doesn't really have any mind altering properties.

SFC W