Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteWhale
No, it's not. You're making a positive assertion while ignoring the varying factors in those statistics. I'm saying your MAIN sticking point is correlation, which is a kind of evidence but far from proving anything. With the other factors involved it doesn't really mean much at all to me. As a skeptic, it takes more than correlation to convince me. In my eyes the 'gate' doesn't even exist if there is no prohibition. Then people would just do what they want without being pressured by the drug culture of their peers or a drug pusher who can't take 'no' for an answer.
Nah, not buying it. I can be convinced though, but you'll have to do better than showing an obvious correlation.
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I'm not going to argue against your individual hypothesis.
There is no way that you are going to have zero prohibition at any level within any society as it relates to alcohol, drug use, etc. The effects are so varied and uncontrollable under individual usage that no society will ever allow zero prohibition on such things. As such, your argument is invalid.
And because of the individual psychological and physiological variants are so wide, there is no way that it can be a situation where it's a "either/or" as it relates to correlation or causation. That's really the whole point of my blathering - that because there is no way to specifically determine the gateway conceptualization as it relates to one specific drug, either from an individual or societal perspective, it has to be addressed in a more encompassing authoritarian manner based on what society perceives as correct from a majority perspective. (And, even then, I'm not necessarily sure that in these instances that the majority of a society can be trusted with the decision making process. Perhaps Hamilton was right after all...)