I think alcohol and tobacco used to be banned for cultural reasons but there’s pretty clear research now pointing to bad outcomes for early drug use. 21 is still high so some of the cultural element remains but I wouldn’t consider those two entirely ungrounded in reason.
> there’s pretty clear research now pointing to bad outcomes for early drug use
I wasn't aware. Or more specifically, I thought it wouldn't ethically be possible to do that research while it's legally forbidden.
I assumed We'd be bound to look at cases pathologic enough to warrant intervention, and the researchers tracking back the root cause at drug ingestion. While a useful approach, it would tell us nothing about all the other cases that weren't pathological.
On tobacco specifically I think most long term effects disappear in smoker below 25 ? Not arguing that kids should smoke, but like coming at th French situation, it looks like there is a dose where the effects on kids will be negligible.
PS: even for people withing the legal smoking range, studies on drugs still tend to focus on patients that had to enter the medical system
For instance alcohol addiction is extremely destructive at pathological levels, and we have a flurry of studies coming to a "no safe dose" conclusion. But we also have plenty of evidence on what happens when outright banning alcohol at large scale and it's not great either.
I'm not sure we have a good model or understanding yet of what it actually means to have addictive substances around and their social effects.
I don't think that's true. We have thousands of years of experience. Not everything needs the perfect study taken in the perfect lab conditions for folks to make conclusions which are useful for operating in the real world.
