Quote:
Originally Posted by hankdane";p="
Can someone please explain the moral justification for drug control?
Some folks here have said that marijuana is OK but heroin is not. What is the distinction, and why should you and/or government make it? Whose body is it?
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It's not so much a moral issue as a social one... public health really. The use of addictive drugs, especially narcotics such as heroin, creates certain ill effects to society as a whole. Such things as increased burden on the health care system, increased crime, decreased job productivity, etc. - in the end we ALL pay for these things. So even though it's your own body, you become part of a greater problem when you get into serious drugs.
But you make a good point about drawing lines of distinction. The laws make no sense when you consider the ill effects of alcohol and tobacco, 2 legal (and LETHAL) drugs. That's why any argument against drugs on a basis of morality, or even social cost, is ridiculous. In reality it's all about the benjamins, baby!