On the other extreme end of the scale, consider a young person with lots of potential entering university, who then decides to rebel by trying increasingly harder drugs, and ends up with drugs tainted with fentanyl and dies of an overdose. Similar situations have happened before, such as this report of a physics senior dying of fentanyl [1].
Consider young people who try black hat hacking as a prank or for illicit means, and getting a criminal record (source of this happening in Canada [2]. Students also cheat on their courses, get caught, and get expelled. Others make TikTok videos on train tracks, touch the electrified rail, and end up hospitalized or dead.
This is the extreme end of the scale, but these cases and personal experience have led me to believe that it's typically far better to follow the law while questioning conventions. I admit there are cases (e.g. Uber) where people and companies succeeded by breaking the law, but I figure the risks are pretty high, and there is still plenty of opportunity to innovate while respecting the law in one's personal and professional life.
Absolutely (such as an ongoing trial project in Vancouver, Canada), but it’s not currently not politically realistic in many regions.
In the meantime for the individual, I believe it’s best to sit down and talk to a young person about the risks of drugs in a realistic way. Not the DARE fearmongering stuff, but talking about how drugs can be an easy distraction and source of drama from the things in life that should be higher priorities (e.g. relationships and career). This should also include specific advice about avoiding pills because of fentanyl tainting.
