Good drugs, bad drugs

Canadian Dan Gardner takes a look at drug hypocrisy in modern culture and dares ask the question, "What the hell?"

Western cultures have a bizarre relationship with psychoactive drugs. Some are believed to be so dangerous and destructive that they are banned and those who make, sell or use them are deemed criminals and outcasts. But when a government-owned corporation seeks to boost alcohol consumption by marketing the drug as a sociable and sophisticated indulgence, no one sees anything amiss.

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News and entertainment media are filled with stories about people who suffer as a result of taking an illicit drug, but they almost never have stories of people who take an illicit drug without bad consequences following -- even though the latter event is vastly more common than the former. The opposite is true of alcohol: As a 2003 study of British television found, stories of people suffering as a result of drinking do appear occasionally -- almost always in the news -- but those stories are "infrequent" compared to "positive, convivial, funny images" of drinking.

It is one of those high-level essays that points out the obvious paradoxes in modern drug policy, but it is a good read. Check it out.