>We don't regulate alcohol use,

Yes we do. And it's a cash cow for the government so we're unlikely to stop anytime soon.

I think you have it upside-down. It's tobacco and alcohol that have special treatment, not pot.

My main guess for that special treatment is merely that tobacco and alcohol were global when we started taking care about global health issues, so we left them, but banned any newcomer

> My main guess for that special treatment is merely that tobacco and alcohol were global when we started taking care about global health issues, so we left them, but banned any newcomer

That narrative just doesn’t hold up.

Opium, heroin and cocaine were pretty much global when we started taking care about global health issues.

Not consumed by everyone all around the world, for sure, but readily available and consumed nearly everywhere.

Heck, heroin was considered a magical cough syrup safer than morphine at one point. It took nearly 30 years for it to be banned in the US [1][2]

Compared to tobacco and alcohol, it certainly is a young one, but cannabis and hallucinogenic mushrooms hardly qualify as newcomers.

[1]: https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/from-c...

[2]: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bu...

There are plenty of psychoactive substances on the shelves of any major supermarket and most of the stuff is completely unregulated.

How is coffee different from tobacco? How is nutmeg or saffron different from drugs? How about artificial flavonoid—xanthine concoctions such as Red Bull?

> How is coffee different from tobacco?

The difference in effect on health is severe, for one? There’s room for more nuance than ”both of these are psychoactive substances”.

Sure. But how about the fact that tobacco and coffee actually share the same psychoactive substances, i.e. Harmala alkaloids?

Do they or don't they have the same harmful effect on health?

It's a new one on me that coffee contains nicotine, the principal addictive agent in tobacco.

They do have the same effects on the central nervous system as far as Harmala alkaloids are concerned, including deleterious effects. Some of the aforementioned alkaloids are neurotoxic, are deposited in brain fatty tissues, and can proceed the development of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

The public is largely noninformed about the constituents of coffee and tobacco smoke. Only nicotine and caffeine are ever mentioned, and even scientific articles routinely confuse the effects of pure nicotine and tobacco smoke, and those of pure caffeine and coffee. It is a collective illusion.

I never claimed that coffee contains nicotine: rather, what coffee and tobacco have in common are these Harmala alkaloids, the most abundant of which act as so-called monoamine oxidase inhibitors in humans.

However, some rather unexpected things do contain nicotine: tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and green peppers.

> How about artificial flavonoid—xanthine concoctions such as Red Bull?

In my country, 'energy drinks' cannot be sold to anyone under 20 (same as alcohol and tobacco) for exactly this reason.

Breathalyzers tests are a thing you know.

And I don't know if companies do it but I know that monitoring Gamma GT levels of suspected alcoholics is a thing. It is a problem for those who have naturally elevated levels btw.

What is unfortunate is that we don't have a good test for cannabis-related impairment. It is quite reliable for alcohol BAC is easy to test and correlates with impairment, but for cannabis, you don't really know if a person is completely stoned or if he has sobered up.

But yeah, cannabis use is less tolerated than alcohol use, cultural reasons I guess. Plus, it is really difficult to control alcohol since pretty much anyone can turn staple food into alcohol at home.

Yeah, I tried to cover that with "past use". They care if you're drunk at work. Which is different from pot, where many workplaces care if you're high at home.

Which country are you in?

Alcohol is one of the most highly regulated substances on the planet.

Also, no puritanism here, just facts about how people can use pot and remain completely in control (again, worth pointing out that someone can fail a pot drug test if they smoked it weeks ago)

Meaning most people can drink alcohol without fear of being tested for past use in a work context. We don't regulate it in the workplace the way we regulate pot use.

I think a big part of the issue is how the subtances work and how the tests work.

Are there tests that indicate past use of alcohol or just the ones I'm aware of where the measurement drops swiftly as alcohol is processed?

Same for marijuana; is there an objective(ish) test that indicates current intoxication or only the tests that show use within about a month?

Marijuana does stick around a long time, but they test for other stuff that doesn't, some benzos, heroin, etc. There's apparently something called an ETG test for alcohol consumption that can reach back a few days.

I dunno. Background checks include DUIs.

You don't get a DUI just for being drunk on the couch on the weekend, you have to also be operating a vehicle while drunk. Which is what the parent comment was talking about -- it's not regulated in the same way that pot usage is.

Every alcohol consumer has a DUI? Maybe in Wisconsin, but not in general

> Alcohol is one of the most highly regulated substances on the planet.

It's one of the most-highly taxed. Not quite the same as being banned nearly everywhere, with many countries having mandatory death sentences.

But we do regulate alcohol use... Severely...

I'm not aware of many jobs that "drug" test for any use of alcohol. Yet with cannabis this is considered acceptable.

Cannabis is a Schedule I drug. Alcohol is not.

Not for any legitimate reasons, though. Mostly for historical, political reasons.

I did clarify with the edit.