Re: Bicycle outing with happy ending

On 5/24/2025 9:03 AM, Shadow wrote:

  Trafficking opiates should be punished with life imprisonment.
Pity most of it is done by military and para-military groups that went
to Afghanistan, they are practically above the law in the US. The
brunt of police oppression is on users and small dealers.

I think it was the first volume of _Freakonomics_ that pointed out that most in the drug trade do not drive flashy cars, wear big gold necklaces, have tons of girlfriends, etc.
The explanation was that most people in the drug trade are young guys recruited to stand on street corners, making customer contacts and delivering drugs. The are paid a pittance by the guys higher up the ladder. They take most of the risk while the bigger guys make almost all the profit.

The drug that kills more than any other is alcohol. But nobody
says that. Bad for business. And too many addicts.

There are other problems. Alcohol has been a component of every human civilization, AFAIK. That leads me to believe it's probably beneficial in some significant way - otherwise society would have evolved away from it. Also, there's no practical way to outlaw it. Like many folks, I've made my own in my kitchen and basement.
I dimly recall one article in _Scientific American_ that claimed that on balance, alcohol seemed to be good for society - at least up to the invention of distillation. Once we could increase the alcohol content level above what yeast can survive, alcohol began having significant detrimental effects.
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- Frank Krygowski