Alcohol is a hardcore drug. If you drink alcohol, you are a drug user.

>> "Back to one of the core points of my arguments: "If you use alcohol, you are a drug user"." We've got some crosstalk going on. I agree, if you use alcohol, you are a drug user, but as previously stated, so are coffee drinkers, so this is a wasted point in respect the the hardcore aspect. But to debate your original assertion, I do not believe either categorical classification of alcohol drinkers as "hardcore-drug" users or as hardcore "drug-users". Hardcore is the key word. I feel the evidence is insufficient to show either the former or latter showing merit. >> "I didn"t mean it as simple pedantry or to make a silly point. Like I said early on, I don't consider having a drink with one"s meal to be tantamount to drug use." And therein lies the rub again. I agree too. However, having a dose of heroin in the amount of a user seeking a high with a steak & lobster five course is a completely different story, and the effects sought after "1 usage" of Heroin versus "1 usage" of alcohol are vastly different, hence their societal classified distinctions between hardcore and not hardcore. When is the last time anybody heard of casual heroin use becoming popular? It's a hardcore drug, you don't even do it casually because of its severe biological and neurological impact is devastating --- hence why Heroine is hardcore and alcohol is not. >> "Note how I said drug user and not "junkie". I don"t think people who do drugs are automatically junkies. Moderate recreational drinkers aren"t junkies." Agree. A recreational user of alcohol will have little to no adverse affects on theirlife. A recreational user of heroin on the other hand has a different experience, further evidence of the "hardcore" distinction we seem to be really debating. >> "If you put a psychoactive chemical in your body to alter your mind state, you are ingesting a drug." Conceded. I agree with your second sentence. But your lead-in is why we are debating. Yes, pedantically, all chemicals that induce physiological effects are drugs, so by that merit everybody is a drug user. But hardcore is what I take issue with for aforementioned reasons. >> "Dying from heroin injections aren"t risks worth taking." That's why they're hardcore and alcohol isn't. And to boot, an injection is the typical dosage, whereas a typical dosage of one casual drink isn't going to lead to having the severe bad time that heroin would. >> "The fact that the majority of people who use alcohol will be safe doesn"t convince me that it"s a low-lethality drug like caffeine or marijuana." Again, you concede that the vast majority of people that use alcohol will be safe. The vast majority of heroin users will not be safe long-term. Hence the societal accepted distinction. >> "Lots of things are hardcore. Doesn't mean you can"t do them safely and responsibly." Agreed. No relevance here. Nowhere have I argued that hardcore things can't be done responsibility. Hardcore porn is watched responsibly everyday by netizens across the world. >> "I ask that if you have two sons, one of them is drinking with his buddies and the other is eating magic mushroom with his buddies, you don"t say "Okay have fun " don"t get too drunk" to one and "No! Are you crazy? Don"t do drugs!!!" to the other" This does not have to do with the hardcore-ness of alcohol. Most folks who buy/sell underground drugs by trade would not consider shrooms to be hardcore. The vastly different reaction by parents to kids doing shrooms is due to their illegality, not their true hardcore nature. Blame Reagan's war-on-drugs for that point.