TTT - // Any drug thread always seems to induce a comparison with alcohol, it's not helpful there is no correlation, no comparison and no relevancy. //
I take your point that alcohol is not necessarily relevant to this particular discussion, but there absolutely in correlation and comparison between alcohol and any other drug, commercially available or illegal.
Drugs are designed to alter consciousness, and that is a factor they all share, and that is a fundamental and irrefutable basis for their use.
As I mentioned, there are obviously scales and variatios - the glass of wine at one end of the scale, and the heroin overdose at the other.
But that does not alter the fact that the motivation to ingest any drug, is to adjust the perceptions of the user to whatever degree they feel they need.
And therefore, alcohol has its place in any and all lists of drugs that are ingested by individuals.
It is a socially acceptable, woven into the very fabric of our culture, but the motive for ingesting it, for the yuppie in Docklands wine bar, or the crack addict in Brixton, is precisely the same, alteration of the mental state.
And that is a constant across any and all non-prescription drugs taken by anyone anywhere in the world.