Alcohol.
Lots and lots of people lean heavily on it and think that alcohol is the spice of their life. When, it contributes to so many problems than it’s so-called benefits. We tried, in America anyways, to outright ban alcohol. Problem was that the person who wanted it banned, was too extremist.
Like he didn’t think it all through and think just going for the jugular of the problem is what will work. When, it didn’t and just made people work around it until eventually the ban was dismantled.
So, since then, we’ve been putting up with drunk drivers, drunk disputes, drunk abusers and other issues. I still wish we could just slam our hands down at the desk and demand we sit to discuss in how to properly deal with this issue than people proclaiming that it’s not a problem.
Not to mention it occurs naturally in rotting fruit. It would be like attempting to ban photosynthesis.
Are we gonna outlaw yeast, too?
During prohibition in the US, there was inoculated fruit juice being sold with the warning like: “do not leave unattended for 2 weeks at room temperature, as it may ferment”.
Stay away from my bread.
Weed is illegal in many parts of the world, as are psychedelic mushrooms.
And those are even harder to make consumable than fruit literally fermenting on a tree, or yeast getting into some sugary drink.
So unless we’re gonna get rid of leavened bread and cut down every Marula tree we’re not getting rid of alcohol.
Mushrooms just grow here in the grasslands. Only problem is harvesting season is mostly in the autumn. So you need te dry them.
But (magic) mushrooms growing in the wild are pretty common in north-west Europe. ( The species is found in a lot of places psilocybe semilanceata ) of course there are many more and you don’t even have to wait to get fermented.
Still even I can just pick them they are still not allowed here (in the Netherlands)
True, but yeast spores are in the air, and if you leave an appropriately sweet and sterile liquid open it will just… make alcohol. They use this technique in Belgium to harvest wild yeast for Lambic.
So until magic mushrooms start showing up inside my house I still don’t consider it equivalent.
In NL there’s a loophole: the fruit (paddo) is illegal, but the mycelium (truffle) isn’t.
Believe me someone will try.
Eventually biology itself will be banned because of how un-controllable it is. All that will be allowed will be silicon components manufactured by a central authority or assembled under centrally-approved code.