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Comment by jbotz | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but no. Alcohol is still killing more people than all the illegal drugs combined, still causing more traffic accidents and violence, and overall costs to society, than all the illegal drugs combined. If you want evidence, google something like 'drugs vs alcohol'... there's lots; from the perspective of public health there is no doubt about this.

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Its not like they just invented alcohol 40 years ago.

Besides, I've never heard it reported that 'X' brand of vodka killed a family of four on the turnpike last night. Vodka doesn't kill people. People kill people.

> Alcohol is still killing more people than all the illegal drugs combined,

That's because they're illegal.

So alcohol should be made illegal?

The problem with making alcohol illegal is that it is so easy to produce it at home, with generally available ingredients like sugar or yeast. That's why prohibition did not work. Banning drugs, especially synthetic ones is orders of magnitude more effective.

The problem is that now a days a chemist can simply attach an inert molecular group to a banned chemical and viola it's no longer illegal but still the same drug. There are tons of LSD analogues like 1-acetyl-LSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALD-52

Additionally:

O-Acetylpsilocin (4-AcO-DMT)

AL-LAD (6-allyl-6-nor-lysergic acid diethylamide)

ETH-LAD (6-ethyl-6-nor-lysergic acid diethylamide)

PRO-LAD (6-propyl-6-nor-lysergic acid diethylamide)

1P-LSD (1-propionyl-lysergic acid diethylamide)

Cannabis and psilocybic mushrooms literally grow wild, ready to consume.

Well, we could try that, it would be a noble experiment wouldn't it?

Have you heard of prohibition? Been there don’t be that. Didn’t work.

http://nebraskastudies.org/1900-1924/prohibition-of-alcohol/...

No it isn't. Despite the "war on drugs" those illegal drugs are easily available in the US and even during the Prohibition of the 1930s alcohol consumption only dropped by 30-40%. Similarly ending the prohibition on canabis, where this has occurred, has resulted only in a small increase of consumption, and has even resulted in a decrease in consumption among adolescents. The evidence would seem to indicate that even if you legalized all currently illegal recreational drugs, alcohol would still kill more people, especially if you dedicated even a fraction of the money saved to treatement and prevention efforts.

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