[DiogenesLamp]

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.

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?

[Boogieman]

“I do not know about your community, but in my community the City Council passed an ordinance regulating sales of the stuff.”

Yes, I did say there are usually local ordinances, though in the case of spraypaint they are ordinances concerning graffiti and not substance laws. Still, some places have no ordinances, and we have no Federal laws on the issue. There are quite of few of those kinds of substances that have absolutely no regulation, so that a 10 year old can buy them anywhere in America. Somehow, we manage to survive this mortal threat though.

“Possibly, but why would we have need of regulating substances that are not being abused?”

I’m not talking about substances that aren’t abused. Inhalants like spray paint, paint thinner, toluene, even gasoline, are abused. Still, we don’t need a federal law to deal with them. In most cases, we don’t even need state or local laws.

You made an argument that if pot were legal, some people would use it irresponsibly and ruin their lives, so we would have to either ban it or license it. What I’m saying is, we have plenty of other substances that are legal that people do use irresponisbly and we aren’t forced to ban or license them. Society survives just fine using other methods to deal with those substances.