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RE: Ross Ulbricht: Silk Road appeal denied.
Yes, And society has learned through experience that it can decrease the bad effects through certain laws. Legal drinking ages (21 in USA), laws on drinking and driving, laws about not serving alcohol after certain hours, and laws about not serving drunk patrons, and more go to help limit the damage of these. Many drugs are illegal for a reason. Meth for example is extremely addictive and can destroy lives so fast. It really warps the brain. Plus drugs and alcohol are a factor in so many other things. (Crime, people not able to maintain a job, unwanted pregnancies, sexual abuse and more.) Drugs that are not a big factor in this -smoking or caffeine- have had less restrictions. People don't like rules, but rules do work.
Do you think 17 year olds should vote for the legislatures? What about 16 year olds? We can enforce countless restrictions on individuals for the "good of society". The enforcers may actually believe in their hearts it is the right thing to do.
Take a society that legally distributes alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine and simultaneously restricts cannabis and psilocybin. Such a society will manifest certain characteristics. Do you believe human governments capable of finely weighing all of the potential risks/rewards of each restriction?
I was politically aware when I was 17, enough that I felt I would have made an educated informed decision, however today I shudder when discussing politics with people because I run into many who are much older than that, and so ill-informed that it scares me. A decision had to be made, people decided it was 18. I don't feel like changing it just for the sake of changing it. I do not believe human governments are capable of finely weighing ALL the potential risk and rewards of each restriction, but I do feel they they are good at generally weighing MOST OF the risks and rewards of most things. Governments have done an amazing thing with traffic laws. Governments have done an amazing thing at zoning laws. Water is safe to drink. Governments are made up of people. We need to constantly change laws. America is facing a opid crisis -drugs pain killing drugs perscribed by congress. The drug companies told congress their new pain killing drugs would not be addictive. Well, they are. And now millions are addicted. This was a failure. It was only 150 years ago that electricity was invented, yet we have very few deaths due to electrocution. Governments made laws, standards and they worked. Water in most of the Western World is safe. That is not the case in other places. This regulation worked. In America congress outlawed DDT -a mosquito killing pesticide- After this millions of people died in Africa. I think this was a mistake. We can always rebel against government, but there are times to acknowledge that it works.