story
There are those who find those two sentences a bit curious, and those who do not.
Mountain climbing, rock climbing, skydiving, scuba diving, and even just walking across the street all risk serious bodily injury, brain injury, and death. Yet most people won't freak out if you choose to engage in one of these activities.
But if you dare to swallow a pill every now and then, you're treated as a reckless, immoral madman.
It's because people understand what can go wrong and how it goes wrong in all of the activities you listed above. However I'll wager that many illegal drug users don't know what goes on at all and have no clue what can go wrong. Even when they do, I think it's pretty smart to acknowledge that brain chemistry is far more complicated than car crashes, and it's harder to figure out the unexpected / long term effects of one than the other.
I'm not really sure that knowledge of what can go wrong explains much about the different attitudes society at large has towards drug users vs people who engage in other risky activities (including simply riding in a car).
Most people know that if you ride in a car you could get in to a car accident and you could be maimed or killed or wind up a vegetable. How does knowing these potential effects explain the differing attitudes towards car drivers vs drug users?
With rock climbing or driving or scuba diving, it's an "It might happen to you, but if you avoid these extreme situations it won't" situation whereas with taking drugs you can't really avoid pitfalls, other than taking care not to take too large a dose.
With drugs it's likelier to be "you get smaller amounts of damage if you take smaller doses" or plain "we don't know what the fuck this thing does".
I agree that it doesn't explain much about the attitudes. The default attitude should be ambivalent until we know more, not hostile.
