Skipjack wrote:How do you explain the relative lack of an alcohol black market after the end of alcohol prohibition in America? An unfathomable mystery to be sure.
No, not at all.
First of all, there is plenty of alcohol made accessible to minors. Plenty of pubs loose their liquor license every year because of that.
It just is not such a big deal with alcohol, since it does not get you hooked emmediately. It can not get you addicted the first time you drink it (unless there is something wrong with you).
Nor does using other drugs. In fact, on the scale of addictability, alcohol and nicotine rank higher than pot, LSD, and ecstasy. I've used lots of drugs and the only issue on quitting any of them was that alcohol is so commonly used that there is immense social pressure to keep using it, and there is the popular myth of it not being a "dangerous" drug, even though alcohol is one of the easiest drugs to overdose and die from.
In Health Magazine of November/December 1990 a panel of experts were asked to rate the addictiveness of commonly used drugs and substances, taking into consideration two key questions:
* How easy is it become addicted these substances?
* How hard is it to overcome the addiction?
The panel cited various individual traits that might affect the person's vulnerability to substance addiction, including their physiology, psychology and social and economic pressures, but excluded those from the rankings, rating the substances only on the potential inherent in the drug.
I have added some data from more recent research into other drugs such Ritalin (used to combat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children) and SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) anti-depressants, by the World Health Organisation and the Uppsala monitoring centre in Sweden – these items were not commonly prescribed in 1990, and therefore were not included original survey.
The list below is ranked from highest addictiveness level to lowest.
Very highly addictive (experts rated chance of addiction above 85%):
* Nicotine
* Methamphetamine smoked – (Ice, Glass)
* Crack
* Methamphetamine injected – (Crystal Meth)
* Paroxetine (Paxil/Seroxat)
* Venlafaxine (Effexor)
* Sertraline (Zoloft/Lustral)
* Fluoxetine (Prozac)
* Diazepam (Valium)
Highly addictive (experts rated chance of addiction between 75 and 84%):
* Methaqualone – (Quaalude)
* Secobarbital – (Seconal)
* Alcohol
* Heroin
* Amphetamine inhaled through the nose - Crank
Reasonably addictive (experts rated chance of addiction between 50 and 74%):
* Ritalin
* Cocaine
* Caffeine
* Phencyclidine (PCP)
Not particularly addictive (experts rated chance of addiction below 25%):
* Marijuana
* MDMA (Ecstasy)
* Psilocybin Mushrooms
* LSD
* Mescaline
Since alcohol is so great, why don't we just legalize everything up to that point on this list? Oops, nicotine is at the top, what shall we do?