Hi! Ernie -- Striving, but probably not reaching, I think.  By common usage (at least as far as I have observed it)  a drug is a biological or chemical entity (BE or CE) taken/ingested/administered for the purposes of human system alteration, but not classified as a food.  Or, by 19th century usage, a drug is a substance/thing/ item listed in the Pharmacopeia.  Clearly the second definition is insufficient (it wouldn't include PCP or MDMA not to mention all the SSRIs MOAIs, etc.  The first would lead to counting caffeine as a drug but not sugar, not to mention the question of chocolate, which many consider both a food and a drug -- not to mention beer (which likewise could be considered both).  So what we're left with, I think, is the necessity to choose as a definition of "drug" whatever definition will, in Lakatosian terms, lead us to a progressive research programme -- and not to use a definition ("boundary-drawing") that will lead us to! a degenerating research programme.  Accordingly, I would deep-six the inclusion of alcohol as a drug, even tho' it satisfies both definitions above, simply because (in my view) it distracts from making real advances on the etiology and epidemiology of alcoholism and wastes time on subsidiary matters like whether alcoholism is a form of drug addiction (and all the rest of what some have called the AOD syndrome, with the accent on the O).  But if someone can show me how defining alcohol as a drug will improve our research programme, I'll be happy to listen (assuming what is said is medically and biogenetically relevant). -- Jared Lobdell