This might as well be how Blackberry, Nokia, and Palm blew it. And I'm probably leaving off a few companies.

IMO it all comes down to arrogance about your own platform. In Nokia's case that was Symbian.

The cynic in me would say that this should take care of the overpopulation problem...

"But ... but ... that's medicine!"
"Ok, tell us for what illness so we can get sick right"

Ok, but I think you'll agree that the main reason for your home brew booze being on par with "commercial" production is that you're able to communicate freely with other hobby brewers and enthusiasts who might have more insight in the matter than you had at the beginning (maybe because they themselves learned it, legally, as part of their trade or education). Information that can be spread legally (which should be the norm, btw) can only lead to a greater good in the end.

Imagine you could not buy certain quality ingredients (because they're deemed "precursors" to your "drugs") or certain machinery or tools (because they are deemed "manufacturing aids" for your "drugs"). Imagine you could not freely tell others who want to join the group of brewers what you learned and how they can improve their product. You'll end up with very a very bad product, produced from impure and unsuitable raw materials with a far from optimal production method.

Prostitution is legal in Nevada?

Needles are illegal?

What kind of fucked up country makes sterile needles illegal?

I guess "nobody" is a bit too much of an absolute, just like with any drug out there, there is a potential for abuse and a potential to cause self harm and even harm to others, but if you consider the various crime and health issues associated with the illegality of drugs, I dare say with some faith that fewer people would die as a result of drugs. Just subtract crime (murder, manslaughter, bodily harm) associated with acquisition, turf wars amongst warring dealer groups and health issues associated with inferior sanitary situation and quality of product and I'm pretty sure you'll end up with a lot fewer people hurt or dead.

Various reasons. First and foremost, of course, financial ones. Manufacturers of legal drugs are of course not interested in sharing their market. And here you have three very powerful lobbies against you: Alcohol, Tobacco and (no, not Firearms) Pharma. The first two obviously have no interest in you having access to cheap and easy replacements for their drugs, especially ones you can produce far more easily than you could produce your own tobacco or alcohol. Pharma's spiel here is even more insidious.

Their big problem is that, especially during the 50s and 60s, a lot of very potent and very useful psychotropics have been discovered. Actually, the "best" drugs have been designed and manufactured then. The stuff that could literally save lots of people today from their psychological problems, from anxiety to depression. And while we might think that it's awesome that these drugs are "perfect", they have a fatal flaw from the point of view of a pharma corp: Their patent expired.

Now, how can you compete with a "perfect" drug? How could you market something that is inferior but patentable against something that is better but could be made by anyone. Hell, could be made with trivially available equipment to the average amateur chemist? Answer: You cannot. Without the aid of the law, that is.

There are quite a few very potent and very useful SSRAs, SNRAs and other releasing agents out there that are, from a health point of view, at least as safe as many of the contemporary SSRIs and SNRIs while also having the advantage of actually doing something for the patient... but they're invariable Schedule I/Class A.

You can actually check for yourself, simply follow the timing of drug law changes and patent expiration. It's quite ... interesting.

You mean, like, replying to trolls?

Oh damn, here you caught me!

Rest assured, if other drugs were legal and commercially produced, nobody would dream of touching the "home brew" crap you get right now.

I don't even want to know what kind of swill people drank during the prohibition.

At least owning them is legal.

A German court actually once finally settled the question why alcohol is legal and other drugs ain't. Their explanatory statement: Alcohol is not primarily consumed for its intoxicating qualities.

Well, I pondered this at length in the presence of a few beer and the next day it hit me like lightning: No, I don't get drunk for the buzz, it's for that great head I have the next day...

Most of the really heavy problems of heroin stem from its illegal status and the accompanying effects. A legal, clean and FDA controlled source of heroin would do away with the problem of overdose (since you'd KNOW for a fact how pure it is and how much you'd have to take) and there would be no side effects from cheap, potentially poisonous crap added to squeeze more money out of every gram. Not to mention the less than sanitary circumstances that usually apply when it is injected.

It is still a drug, no doubt about that, and control needs to be enforced around it, but I'm still positive that a lot of the troubles that we have with heroin and other drugs can be avoided by offering those that want it badly enough to not only fuck up their own lives but also those of others just to get that crap to simply give them what they want. Call me a liberal nutjob, but I am all in favor of handing every man enough rope to hang himself.

The libertarian in me says that nothing of this would happen if heroin was easier to get by those that need it. I highly doubt people really want to take that crap over heroin...

True that.

The average dad usually has far less issues with his little girl wanting a toy handyman set than with his little boy wanting a Barbie dream house.