Soft drug

The term soft drug is given sometimes to a range of drugs that are supposed to be less harmful than other drugs, called hard drugs. The main difference is that soft drugs cause only psychological addiction if at all, while hard drugs also cause physical addiction and damage the body in other ways. Examples of soft drugs include: cannabis and hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybe mushrooms, and peyote. Drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, although generally legal, are not considered "soft" (in fact because they are harmful and strongly addictive these should be called "hard").

The difference between soft drugs and hard drugs is important in the Drug policy of the Netherlands, where soft drugs are dealt with much lighter, up to being for sale as such in clearly recognisable coffeeshops, than hard drugs.