If pot is ever legalized, that’s the end of Libertarianism.

No…I don’t even drink.

But that’s because I CHOOSE not to, not because of the legality (or illegality) of it.

I think that is true of most people. It isn’t price, it isn’t whether it’s legal or illegal, they either choose to partake or not. You can’t very well say that recreational drugs are hard to get…or prohibitively expensive either.

I do not believe that legalization would necessarily increase use. It might…I’m not saying it’s impossible…but I doubt it would significantly. I believe that, because the people who don’t use drugs don’t because they choose not to, the vast majority would continue to choose not to were they legalized.

Besides, price point could easily be artificially maintained through taxation…the proceeds of which (and some of the money saved in NOT prosecuting the “war on some drugs” could be used for addiction treatment and counseling.

There are plenty of treatment programs out there, but the best ones are VERY expensive and few can afford to utilize them. Many of the people in most need of help, simply can’t get it for financial reasons or end up having to settle for less effective programs with lower success rates.

With that said: even were I to believe that drug use would increase with legalization, so what?

Isn’t that a personal choice?

Does freedom only mean that we are free to make the “right” decisions? Or does it mean that we’re free to do stupid things as well.

I will never use recreational drugs (well…other than caffeine, and I’ve cut back on that) but I simply do not understand the penchant of some to tell others how they may live their lives.

If you’re not bothering me, It is simply none of my business if you are stoned on crack every minute of the day.

If your crack habit leads to other crimes that DO affect others, then you should pay for those crimes, not for the decision to be a crack-head.

In my humble opinion.

“If people are free to do as they wish, they are almost certain not to do as we wish. That is why Utopian planners end up as despots…”
–Thomas Sowell

“There’s only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
— P.J. O’Rourke

Sailorcurt´s last blog post..One thing I’ve been remiss in posting about

And I would add #4, “people don’t have enough easily avoidable threats to their person. Stupidity is being subsidized by the government, and we are therefore getting loads of it. Legalizing some obviously insanely bad and deadly drugs would do a lot towards making the mortally stupid readily identifiable.”

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Phelps´s last blog post..People told me that if I voted for McCain…