“If you really believe that, then lets discuss dynamite. Its usage currently requires an explosives license, but if I am to understand you correctly, you have no objections to letting anybody play with it. Do I understand you correctly?”
No, I’m talking about currently unlicensed items which can be used irresponsibly. Take inhalants for example. Anyone can go buy spraypaint (though minors are usually barred by local ordinance). Most of us only use it to paint stuff, but a few fools choose to inhale it and get high, get addicted to it, and ruin their lives. We aren’t forced to either license spraypaint or ban it because of that situation. We simply let the fools do what they will, and lock them up when they become a nuisance or danger to the rest of us.
There are thousands of other examples that could be brought up of similar things that don’t force us to make the choice you suggest.
I do not know about your community, but in my community the City Council passed an ordinance regulating sales of the stuff. The State passed a law limiting the purchase of Meth ingredient Pseudo-Ephedrine.
It is not in any communities best interest to have drug addled kooks wandering up and down their streets.
There are thousands of other examples that could be brought up of similar things that don’t force us to make the choice you suggest.
Possibly, but why would we have need of regulating substances that are not being abused? It is only as a result of the abuse of Medical elixirs in the late 1800s that prompted the creation of laws banning the use of certain ingredients (mostly cocaine) in those patent medicines. It was the result of a widespread and rapidly increasing addiction to those patent medicines that led lawmakers to take action against them.
Again, why ban or regulate something which is NOT being abused?