The fact that you are willing to shift blame onto a third party (to whit, the parents) who did not participate and quite often have had zero knowledge of the event for years following: But, you won't place any blame on the supplier, an active participant who knows full well they are misleading and deceiving in order to make a fast buck and damn the consequences.

The transaction is a two party event and that you seem to think an ignorant and naive child is solely responsible for being mislead into addiction shows a level of moral bankruptcy on your part that is beyond the pale. I hope someday you grow up.

...and I mean disclosed in full, no sugar coating, no slick sales pitch clouding your decision - then sure, let people choose. Rocket science is not a solved problem, we are getting better but it is not a done deal. It is a best effort endevour, participate at your own risk.

If you don't see victims then you aren't looking.

How many people wiped out their family savings fighting lung cancer because they started smoking in K-12? How many people became addicted to opioids after going through a major surgery? Society is full of families impoverished by medical expenses fighting the consequences of addiction - the people who try to take responsibility don't look like degenerates, people just financially wiped out and barely making a living because of addiction messed up their lives - through no fault of their own.

Society was like that elementary school student who started smoking, to naive to understand; and when the petrochemical industry started burying the research saying that the environment was at risk in order to maintain profits, when they started actively lobbying to delay, defer and deny any legislative correction, that is when they became culpable. All those profits should be attached to correcting the problem they knowingly created because they chose money over doing the right thing.

Nice screed (no, not really). Shame none of it is actually relevant.

Opening: Ad hominem
1st move: Falsehood
2nd move: Non Sequitur
3rd move: Strawman
Closing: Shifting the burden.

Your debate teacher must be so proud.

Buy all means, lets blame the tweenagers for acquiring an addiction - it's all their fault... or rather No, let's NOT.

Society was pushed into it's petroleum addiction and the petro industry bears a huge responsibility for that, especially considering that it continues to perpetrate disinformation in order to maintain that addiction.

You have a poor understanding of addiction - you think that crap is illegal just because we don't like it?

A captured market is a captured market.

Also... the justification for not investing in research of replacement technologies for a known finite resource that is causing major problems is that replacement tech doesn't exist - WTF?!?

The drug dealers aren't damaging your health, you are... see the parallels?

Malum Prohibitum - should not be a crime, but should come under heightened scrutiny to ensure fair action.

The industrialization of space. It is not just a want, it is a need!

I couldn't be because remote communications are on-the-record could it?

Managers want to play power dynamics that they can't put on the record and it scares them to death to think that some employee has their phone sitting beside them recording the screen/audio.

The definition of subsidy is 'a grant'. A loan is not a grant.

Further, under my proposal, it is not the government that would guarantee the loan, it is the other students who have loans, more specifically it is their loan interest that guaranties the loans. Not to mention that if a student knows that defaulting would be hurting other students and not some nebulous 'sticking it to the government', I would expect that defaults would be far fewer.

You might want to review common definitions before jumping on the rhetoric band wagon.

Uhm, loans aren't a subsidy.

Loans are just a means to spread costs over time. And before we get into subsidized interest, that is exactly what I am proposing against.

If you think education is a societal benefit then lobby to have a govt issued loan for students where the interest is the real time insurance over all outstanding defaults. If nobody defaults there is no interest accrued on anyone's loan. if 5% of students default then the interest is exactly the right amount to cover the 5% loss from the program.

Doesn't cost the govt. a dime and doesn't enable lender grift on a social benefit. Won't fix the institutional (Universities, etc.) price gouging, but it at least stops predatory lending.

Set hill top mode. Better than nothing.