I am not an expert, but it seems to me that there is a difference between drugs in how fast and how likely they cause addiction and ruin your health. For example, if something makes people addicted immediately and reliably, then the “equilibrium” is to ban it.
A possible rule of thumb would be to find out what kind of drugs old people use: that would be the kind that is least likely to kill you quickly. (Of course such drugs would be uncool, but that’s kinda the point. If only young people use something, you should probably spend 5 seconds asking yourself why users never get older.)
It seems that the old people’s favorite drug is alcohol.
I have a lot of elderly neighbors. Alcoholism’s been a major factor in about half the deaths in the past few years. The runners-up in this popularity contest are cannabis of the grow-it-on-the-sly strength, and opioids because they’re nasty but people tend to start them later in life.
If we’re being literal about drugs as “non-caloric chemicals we ingest to modify our physiology”, the most popular drug in the elderly is probably a blood pressure med of some kind.
I am not an expert, but it seems to me that there is a difference between drugs in how fast and how likely they cause addiction and ruin your health. For example, if something makes people addicted immediately and reliably, then the “equilibrium” is to ban it.
A possible rule of thumb would be to find out what kind of drugs old people use: that would be the kind that is least likely to kill you quickly. (Of course such drugs would be uncool, but that’s kinda the point. If only young people use something, you should probably spend 5 seconds asking yourself why users never get older.)
It seems that the old people’s favorite drug is alcohol.
I have a lot of elderly neighbors. Alcoholism’s been a major factor in about half the deaths in the past few years. The runners-up in this popularity contest are cannabis of the grow-it-on-the-sly strength, and opioids because they’re nasty but people tend to start them later in life.
If we’re being literal about drugs as “non-caloric chemicals we ingest to modify our physiology”, the most popular drug in the elderly is probably a blood pressure med of some kind.