When I was ten years old, I could buy all the plastic cement I wanted. Really good stuff, it would literally melt plastic so you could fuse the wings to the fuselage. When I was sixteen, the good stuff was long gone, and you had to have parental presence to purchase the inferior substitute. That's when I became a libertarian. I never understood the doper mentality. I once saw a couple guys trying to dry a banana peel in a microwave oven so they could smoke it. Someone had spread a rumor that banana peels contained a hallucinogen. As children building model airplanes, my brother and I took the warnings about not inhaling glue quite seriously. I guess what people consider to be pleasurable experiences vary more than anything. As I recall, you live in Finland. Does the government there prohibit everything that can theoretically be misused, or is the responsibility placed with the individual? In Kansas City, Kansas, it is now illegal to sell spray paint or wide tip marker pens to anyone under the age of 18. The same age you are allowed to buy a rifle or shotgun. But not a beer, that's 21. The idea was to reduce graffiti. But if some gangster or vandal tags a building, the owner of the building can be fined for failure to remove the markings. Weird.

Patrick, Finland is an EU country, so we follow the EU regulations. They usually tend to be pretty sober, but occassionally they also flip. The difference is in the legislature: the EU legislature assumes the customer knows how to use the product and abuse is the blame of the customer, while US leguislature assumes the customer does not know how to use the product and the abuse is the blame of the manufacturer. We have pretty strict alcohol and tobacco laws, but solvents and glue are freely available. In Finland the limits are 16 for tobacco and pilot's licence, 18 for beer and car driver's licence and 20 for strong liquors (20% vol alcohol or more) On guns, just anyone without a criminal record can buy a long firearm (rifle or shotgun), but handguns (pistols and revolvers) are closely monitored. The rationale is that long firearms are hunting and war weapons and little use on crimes, while short firearms are officials' weapons and dangerous on wrong hands. Nevertheless, if you are a reservist, you can buy a short firearm without hassles. Finland has been criticized for its lenient gun laws, but IMO it is just fine as it is. My hubby is still an avid modelmaker; only now I have seen how marvellously beautiful those models can really become in the hands of an adult modelmaker. We don't own firearms, but we do have two crossbows, one longbow, one composite bow and an awful lot of swords and other cold weapons.

The 21 age restriction for alcohol was indirectly imposed by the federal government threatening to withhold federal highway funds from States that didn't raise their drinking age. Tobacco, which in my opinion is worse than alcohol, can be sold to 18 year old. Drivers license in many States is 16. In KCK can drive at 16 but not buy spray paint. 18 for rifle. 21 for handgun. A friend from Brazil says you can vote there at 16. Here it's 18. One day we were at a sporting goods store. I saw an old revolver I liked. The price was only $60. I said I would buy it. I had to fill out a form stating name, address, date of birth, etc and state that I don't have a criminal record, never beat a spouse, deserted from the armed forces, smoke dope, nor am I a foreigner in the country illegally. The clerk then called a government phone number. This took about 10 minutes in all. I told Jaime, "See, it is so difficult to buy a gun in this country, now you know why everyone criticizes the government". I'm not sure about pilot license in US. A nine year old boy recently made a solo flight in a hot air balloon. Driving a car is almost universal, flying a private plane is restricted to the wealthy elite, so there has never been the call for restrictions. Litigation is one of the reasons everything costs so much here. In World War II a machine tool company made a grinder for the Navy. It had all the safety shields required at the time. After the war, it was sold as surplus. Over the years the grinder was passed from one owner to the next. During that time someone removed the safety shields. 30 years after the war, someone was injured using this grinder. They tracked down the original manufacturer and successfully sued them. Beechcraft built a plane in 1935. In the 1970's someone took off in a snow storm and crashed into a mountain. The next of kin sued Beechcraft, and won. Needless to say, nearly all commercial production of aircraft for private use ceased in the United States for over 20 years. You could only buy a 50 year old plane or build your own aircraft. Imagine that with cars! You have a lot of swords and daggers. Are switchblade (spring or pushbutton) knives legal in Finland?

I myself am a chemical engineer, and I know pretty well the organic solvents and substances, and their dangers. While huffing is cheap and legal, it certainly has its dangers. Traditionally inhalant abusers have been considered as the bottom dregs even amongst the abuser community. While huffing isn't as dangerous as, say, heroin or amphetamine, it is well compareable to alcohol in this respect. Those teenage girls who abuse glue or thinner would be much better of if they instead smoked pot or did mushrooms. Red fly agaric is perfectly legal here. Huffing has been traditionally seen as a sign that the individual is VERY disturbed person and has multiple problems. My own vice is homebrewing - I have never really understood what is the idea of getting so intoxicated you really don't understand this world anymore. I have once been on heroin-related painkillers and it has been the most unpleasant stupor I have ever experienced.

I can't stand the taste of alcohol, which has protected me from developing the alcoholism which has affected certain generations of my family. I can believe that glue sniffers and inhalers of industrial solvents are looked down upon by users of substances such as heroin or cocaine, because the legal intoxicants lack the cachet or added thrill of illegality. I once took some anti-depressive medication and found that I had to have a second medication to stop the symptoms of the first medication. I took both of them to the toilet, flushed them away and pronounced myself cured. It worked. One fellow I know says that if he wants to get high, he just gets in his car and drives 100 mph on the highway. My car won't go quite that fast. I'd rather live in a state just on the verge of sleep, but alert enough to respond. Watch a cat sometime, they know that state of relaxed alertness instinctively. Periodically someone in the states will discover an herb or mushroom that hasn't been outlawed yet and exploit it till the next convening of the legislature. Of course, the police frequently enforce the law as they think it should be, not as it actually is, and began actively raiding stores selling some herbal concoction months before the legislature actually banned it.