First Product of mulling:
I realized that I have a heuristic. If it takes a toll on the body, the justification for it bears the onus.
If something leaves me in pain, hungover, weak, fuzzy headed, with a recovey period, cranky, dulled, etc. That is with body-based negative aftereffects, my using/doing it bears the onus. The default is not to use/do such things. Not just thinking of drugs here.
In a sense I take the body as an authority. I can go against that authority in ways that seem justified, but the justifications for doing that bear the onus.
And this would only be much more true when it had to do with drugs that are Medical level intervention strength (and even more so if they are artificial).
What I am responding to here is the idea that the default should be drug use, unless it is demonstrated with great certainty otherwise. As if we were in a vaccuum just dealing with ideas, all ideas starting out the same. Anything can be the default position and then anyone disagreeing bears the onus.
And just to be clear, when I say it is a heuristic that I treat the body as an authority, I do not mean that I never go against what that authority seems to say. I just notice that I want justification for it. It is not a neutral philosophical position for me, to use an extreme example, whether I should leave my hand on the burning stove or take it off. I do not weigh various arguments for and against equally. The default is to not burn my hand and keep on increasing my pain.
Other situations can be more complicated, of course. Sports, running, have painful aftereffects. For me, in general, even in the day after soreness and ’tireness’ the overall feeling is actually good. I have a global good feeling the next day. And if I don’t then something was wrong the day before. (there are also longer term feelings of well being that can get weighed in, though for me,on the sports example, I do not even need to add these in given the short term global good feeling ((which is added on to the fun/social aspects of the participation)))
To me there must be judgments about reality – and you have put forward quite a few – that lead to making medical level (short term) interventions in your own brain chemistry, mainly to have fun. And I see Little solid justification for these judgments. It seems to me that position bears the onus regardless of what other people say or believe or how well they argue their positions. You recently mentioned a chemical I had never even heard of. I can only assume it is something new that someone has made ina lab somewhere. IOW something with minimal general knowledge about the effects of it, short term and long term. This would seem to require even more justification, even if everyone in your society believed it was good to take the drug.
Obviously I hold this default position in relation to mainstream accepted drugs: coffee, Xanax whatever.
IOW all this takes Place - the onus stuff - Before you even get into a discussion with Moreno.