Showing ID & signing in to buy OTC cold medicines?

[Occhidiangela]

In this case, I'd say find the facts for yourself, as I've found that even if the website I pull the info from is a .gov website, the information is nearly always accused of being false, so for you to believe the information, you need to find it yourself.

You are the one making assertions, back them up or put a sock in it. :P Society has, arbitrarily, chosen to condone some forms of brain alteration, within "x" limits, and not others. That social conditioning will have an impact on the frequency of who use what mind altering substances.

Cars are more dangerous than drugs. Most accidents are NOT caused by persons under the influence, which is a significant change from my High School years, when 2/3 fatal accidents were directly related to alcohol use.

Good grief! You cannot compare sex with minors to using a drug.

I could not agree more. I also find curious the status of minor and its state by state variance. In my day, the age of consent in Virginia was 16. Time changes things.

A smart person doesn't use meth and then go hang out with a bunch of strangers.

Aye, indeed, but seems that smarts are rarer than we might desire in society at large. :(

They usually keep themselves in a locked house, either with people they know or alone, and as long as left alone, they leave everyone else alone.

Something worth remembering. Drugs used recreationally each have different impacts on behavior. Dope and alcohol, and for that matter heroin, tend to slow folks down, though first they reduce inhibitions and fracture judgment.

Speed tends to wind people up a notch. Caffeine is a form of speed, as is dear old Red Bull done to excess.

I find your assertion that folks doing Crystal Meth/Ice tend to hide indoors puzzling. I've run into too many speed freaks in my life who were not hiding indoors to buy that. Likewise, during the coked up 70's and 80's, I encountered far too many folks speeding along after a snootful, in a car, for my liking, and came home from parties in the back of more than one car with a cokehead at the wheel. Yes, I am lucky to be alive.

Furthermore, were you to legalize it, so so many people aren't getting ripped off, so that it's not so dangerous to produce (do to lack of proper equipment),  so that it doesn't require every penny a person has to afford even a small quantity of it, much of the property theft and violence revolving around aquiring it would more than likely vanish.

Well, if we could put together an intelligent system for regulating the sale of a variety of recreational drugs, such as pot, like we do tobacco and alcohol, and could put together a legally sanctionable "breathalizer" type control measure, I'd be happy to take the risk and see if we can't drop the price, raise some tax revenue, and possibly ensure folks get a purity standard like they can expect from beer. Not sure if it would solve or worsen the drug problem, but I'd like to see us give it a try under the constraints mentioned.

What is going on now is not, to my view, working all that well. It has increased our jail populations, which merely increases the population density of our criminal class. Bloody wonderful.

Occhi