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myusernamehere1 t1_ja1x58b wrote

Because alcohol is legal meaning that regular law abiding citizens can easily access it. Amphetamine/meth being illegal skews the statistics such that only people willing to break the law can access it, and mentally unhealthy/ill people are more likely to be willing to break the law.

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sharaq t1_ja4jp0u wrote

Stimulants are much more likely to cause psychosis than alcohol is in a much shorter period of time. Within a few weeks of stimulant use, one in a thousand users experience full blown schizophrenia like symptoms. The rate of alcoholic hallucinosis is one in four thousand and only occurs amongst individuals using it for many years; and typically has much milder symptoms typically isolated to visual and tactile stimuli.

The rate of addiction is much lower in alcohol users, at around one in twenty adults. I don't know how many adults try methamphetamine and develop addiction, but colloquially and from my experience with substance abuse programs, the ratio of first use to addiction is much higher by an order of magnitude.

Alcohol is a toxin, yes, but every mammal has evolved to seek out and (within limits) safely metabolize alcohol. Strong stimulants are not something we have evolved alongside. I think there's many safer substances that are unfairly regulated when alcohol gets a pass but methamphetamine simply isn't one.

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myusernamehere1 t1_ja5kqnl wrote

This is all due to prohibition of their use, lack of access to information on how to safely use them, and them being illegal skews user statistics towards people who already have mental health issues. In order for stimulants to cause psychosis, someone would have to take very large doses. I am not saying there are no side effects.

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