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With drugs it's even worse than that: otherwise intelligent and well meaning people have been brainwashed into thinking that we have to be protected from these dangerous drugs.

Lot's of people will say legalize pot but not the "hard stuff" (only because they want legal pot for themselves).

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I'm not sure "brainwashed" or anything like it is right, or at least the one's I've discussed this with who were beyond thinking were terrified about their children. I pointed out the choices of liberty or a drug war, which they did not deny, and they preferred the latter.

Brainwashed is the right word. Have you seen any of thr old drug propaganda videos? Check them out on YouTue. Also look up and watch Referrer Madness. In D.A.R.E my brothers kid learned that LSD stays in your system forever and drips acid down your brainstem, among a whole slew of other non-factual information.

These were people around my age or a bit younger, pre-D.A.R.E (which was started in 1983), and Reefer Madness was considered camp at best by my time.

Never heard any outrageous things like that LSD stuff (can't say for sure about the people I talked to), but it was very well established by then, without any lies needed, that hard drugs are very bad news (by that time psychedelics weren't a big concern, they were long out of fashion).

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