>>512381741 (OP)I rarely drink, but I don’t think alcohol is bad itself, it’s the drinking culture.
Millennials brought up on frat party type movies have a sort of arrested development where the purpose of drinking is to keep drinking until something stupid happens.
The idea of having a couple drinks at a bar is not present. The idea of going to the bar/s is to get WASTED. Bars I’ve been to more recently have drinking games set up like a frat house instead of pool tables and dart boards. The music is too loud to talk like a club. People order rounds of shots while everyone already has a drink, and the socially polite thing to do is reciprocate; which gets out of hand in large groups.
Alcohol is actually a pretty nice drug, used responsibly. You’ll loosen up, have some euphoria and even energy, and no hangover. But I grew up in that fratparty style environment and so when I start drinking, it’s hard to stop. That’s why I drink so rarely.
As far as damage to society, it’s a combination of that and how common it is. If all these binge drinkers turned over to “responsible” heroin use, society would almost certainly be worse off.
My thoughts are that all drugs should be legal, but intoxication should be an intensifier charge on crimes. For example if you get caught stealing the max punishment is A; if you get caught stealing while drunk the max punishment is A+B.
This has dual purpose in incentivizing more responsible use and removing troublemakers from society for longer. I believe prison is more than punitive, it is societal relief from problematic elements as well as behavior correcting.
>dudeweedJust wanted to mention, since we always have threads about how terrible marijuana culture is, it’s very rare for pot smokers to have a goal of being dysfunctional by the end of the night. While they may pressure you a lot for the first puff, they don’t mind if you say you’ve had enough. They tend to not get in trouble.
Char cap I’m done.