this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Does this cause problems with abuse of medicine in China? Medicine usually is poison admitted in a small portion.
This is really interesting! Are legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol categorised as poison, medicine, or something else?
The lack of a difference between the words drug/medicine seems to be more pronounced in US English, where it is common to say terms such as drugstore. In Commonwealth/UK English, the term chemist is more commonly used, and the terms drug/medicine usually have bad/good connotations. I think most would be alarmed if you said you went to the store to pick up some drugs!
Definitely more of an American thing with terms like "drug store", but I think if the context is medicine or other non-prohibited stuff then "drugs" is pretty accepted, it just always comes with the joke that you're nipping down to the chemist's for some heroin.