Hard and soft drugs are terms to distinguish between psychoactive drugs that are addictive and perceived as especially damaging and drugs that are believed to be non-addictive (or minimally addictive) and with fewer dangers associated with their use. The term "soft drug" is considered controversial by its critics because it implies that the drug causes no or insignificant harm.
The distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs is important in the drug policy of the Netherlands, where cannabis production, retailing and use come under official tolerance, subject to certain conditions. The Dutch Opium Law has two lists of drugs, List I and List II, that are colloquially considered to be lists of hard and soft drugs, respectively. Other countries typically have more than two categories. For example, the US has five "schedules" in the Controlled Substances Act, ranging from one through five. The UK has three "classes" in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971: A, B and C.
Famous quotes containing the words hard, soft and/or drugs:
“The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Surely thy body is thy mind,
For in thy face is nought to find,
Only thy soft unchristened smile,
That shadows neither love nor guile,”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)
“To possess your soul in patience, with all the skin and some of the flesh burnt off your face and hands, is a job for a boy compared with the pains of a man who has lived pretty long in the exhilarating world that drugs or strong waters seem to create and is trying to live now in the first bald desolation created by knocking them off.”
—C.E. (Charles Edward)