Currently an article can be nominated for deletion on wikiHow for the following reason: "“Recreational drug focused. This article’s content solicits and/or depicts the use of recreational drugs, or may substantially allude to its use.” Also, consider this potential deletion reasoning, from the Policy: “Universally illegal. This article’s content may be illegal in most countries” The recreational drug reasoning is very vague. Marijuana articles do not appear ( http://www.wikihow.com/Special:LSearch?search=marijuana ) to be covered by it, rightfully so I believe, as marijuana has clear and established medicinal benefits (and isn’t universally illegal either). We must question though- what articles, if any, fit only that first category? An article on how to, say, snort cocaine, or shoot heroin, would clearly be universally illegal. Articles on bongs don’t appear to fit into the first category, as there are a plethora of them still standing ( http://www.wikihow.com/Special:LSearch?search=bong ). Is it even worth it to keep the recreational drug focused deletion reason in the Policy? Can anyone think of an article, hypothetical or actual, that would fit into that category but not into the “universally illegal” category?

I’m just a tad bit confused though by the seeming repetitiveness of those two parts of the NFD policy. Are there any quote unquote “deletable” recreational drug focused articles that are not also universally illegal?

If someone wrote an article entitled “How to Take 50 Tylenol Pills a Day” or something to that effect, then couldn’t we chalk it up as “Sarcastic/reverse logic” (specifically because of the latter half of that reasoning)?

This is exactly what I’m trying to say.

Extremely dangerous, reckless, or irrational seems to fit the two hypotheticals you proposed.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. The “recreational drug focused” deletion category is superfluous because any article that would fit into it would fit into one of these other categories as well.

@Krystle I do see your point there. Good thinking. @TheMartian I was never saying to allow drug-related articles. My original point was that drug-related articles could be deleted almost entirely for other reasons within the Deletion Policy (though Krystle seems to have just disproved that with her mushrooms example).

A little off topic…but one thing to consider with our deletion policy. Our NFD policy doesn’t mean that everything that meets one of our NFD reasons will get deleted…It just means that it is OK to nominate it for deletion. In many cases, articles that get NFD’d just don’t get deleted because the votes never reach a consensus for deletion.

I think that some potential topics regarding abuse of over-the-counter or prescription medications or household items might not be universally illegal, but are definitely drug-focused.

I was thinking more about articles about getting intoxicated using medications, or converting some medications into more powerful drugs, etc.

I would label it dangerous as opposed to reverse logic.

*facepalm* You guys are all missing the point that Metsguy is trying to say… What I take it as is Metsguy is trying to say that we don’t need the “Rec. Drug Focused” category, because everything in that NFD cat can be categorized as something else.

I disagree, as I’ve pointed out above.

Taking 50 Tylenol pills a day would be considered dangerous; I agree with Elocina on that - because you are consuming it. An example that Chris is basically trying to say is if you were to tweak OTC items into illegal substances; this would be nfd|ill. There’s no say on whether you’re going to consume or sell the item. The new/tweaked version alone is what is illegal.

Hmmm, I see what you’re saying. Although it’s uncommon, I can think of some articles that would only be deleted under NFD|dru. For example, there’s psilocybin mushrooms (aka magic mushrooms). They’re not universally illegal and not obviously dangerous. Then there are all kinds of creative ways people get high some of which aren’t easy to prove as dangerous, so we might end up with articles on how to lick a toad and such:confused:

I don’t think that having drug-related articles is a good idea. We do not need to be in the business of teaching people how to do dangerous things. We would not have articles on how to commit suicide, how to break into a home, or how to vandalize websites (even though this can be done with a few simple scripts.) The more weird information that turns up on this site, the more likely it is to be featured on some news network, with us (its editors) being accused of “endangering children.” This has happened with Wikipedia before.

Well, as you know, this site has an article called “How to Cook With Medical Marijuana”, and this article was created by a user who engages in all sorts of troll-like behavior. If we do not have an explicit rule saying that drug-related articles can not be created, some users are going to find loopholes. (And by the way, marijuana for “recreational uses” is not legal in area of the country.) Oh, and on an unrelated note, happy birthday Metsguy234.

Also an observation: using drugs is not illegal, at least in the UK. Selling or possessing it is. So that’s a clear example of something still falling under nfd|dru but not nfd|ill.

Also, do we really need to take out something just because it’s possibly but not necessarily redundant? It works the way it is, methinks.