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This is a crisis I've faced personally, as I've reached middle age and become a local curmudgeon.
I use marijuana products, and I'm in favor of legalization in general.
But I was driving by my old high school and the gas station across the street was advertising, with a HUGE banner outside, for Delta-8 Gummies. And I'm quite a fan of taking an edible with my wife when I have an evening I want to enjoy at home, but...there are kids there? And especially for a semi-legal product like Delta-8, are the Dinergoth or pakistani cashiers going to check IDs for a product that they don't legally need to check IDs on? And for teenagers that are buying something they need to hide from their parents, are they going to use it responsibly, or are they going to take it in the parking lot and drive home getting high as they go?
And I caused a big stink with the local police and the town meetings until they put enough pressure on the owners to stop selling it.
I'm fine with people getting high, but you should need to put in some effort. Go to a weird head shop downtown in the city, speak to some shady people, feel a little naughty and a little guilty. But don't sell it to kids! And don't sell it to kids casually, on the way home from track, where I used to stop and get a hot chocolate or a gatorade after practice.
I'm becoming less libertarian when I see the frictionless world we're headed for with so many vices.
Yep.
I'm not that big of a boomer, I get "the kids will find ways to smoke/drink/have sex regardless of the rules."
But flipping the valence from "this is something you do in secret in the abandoned shed out behind the football field" to "This is something actively advertised and facilitated, including for children" basically portends the complete capitulation of your society to this particular vice.
And I do suggest that the revealed preference is that anyone who has the funds/capacity to escape these things and move to a place where they ARE more restricted/marginalized does so. There are no places that are considered "nice to live" that also have strip clubs on every other corner and THC gummies available over the counter at the convenience store.
This is also why I think "YIMBYs" aren't really a thing. They may claim and honestly believe they want to have affordable housing units built in their neighborhood, but they also know all the disorder and additional nuisances that will come along with these things so in practice they'll oppose it when the rubber meets the road.
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