Alcohol: About 25% of Americans have a drinking problem. Innocents die on our roads, killed by drunk drivers. Alcohol has many known bad health effects and kills its heavy users over time, which can be as little as a few hours at a frat party.
Tobacco: 400 Americans a day die from cancer related to tobacco. That’s the equivalent of a jumbo jetliner crash every day of the year.
Gambling: Don’t know that stats but we know people become addicted to gambling and we know the House always wins and the customers always lose over time.
The bad health and life effects of these things don’t matter. All that matters is the money that flows from the various businesses to the govt by way of taxation, and the profits that flow to influential people who run the large operations.
Health arguments are meaningless and not even part of the equation. If people/govt cared about health, none of the above would be legal.
If you want one of these things to be illegal due to health, you should want them ALL to be illegal.
Tobacco is No. 1 of the group in deaths and should logically be the first one to become illegal. But logic has nothing to do with this, and neither does health.
If FedGov cared about health, there would be no sugar subsidies!
That’s probably the number one thing that could be done for overall health in this country that’s actually somewhat effective is stopping sugar subsidies.
I don’t disagree with a single point made.
Addictive substances or activities that are illegal develop a culture around them that includes altruism among the participants. This is the same phenomena as with a cult or religion with high entry costs. A cult aspect is less likely to occur if a substance is not illegal. Additionally, data about ill effects is easier to capture and the use of the substance or the illegal activity is more apparent and subject to ridicule.