> David E.H. Jones pointed out that the socially sanctioned drugs have something in common: they all taste bad. Or at least, they have a taste that is unappealing to children, and then must be acquired by special effort. Coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol: all taste pretty awful to a ten-year-old.
That's certainly not true of all of the popular forms in which those (particularly alcohol and caffeine) are consumed by adults. Sure, most kids might not like black coffee or straight black tea (but plenty of adults take it with cream and sugar resp. milk and honey), but they've got very little problem with, say, Coca-Cola.
Coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol are all "raw" products. Coca Cola was engineered to taste good. If all drugs were legalized I'm sure we'd get some excellent space cookies or strawberry flavored psylocibe products.
That's certainly not true of all of the popular forms in which those (particularly alcohol and caffeine) are consumed by adults. Sure, most kids might not like black coffee or straight black tea (but plenty of adults take it with cream and sugar resp. milk and honey), but they've got very little problem with, say, Coca-Cola.