To sum up my own views: legalize every type of drug, as well as prostitution, and anything else that hurts no one but yourself.
My reasoning:
Financially: In the 1990's the Rand corporation (
http://www.rand.org/multi/dprc/) conducted a study on cocaine use in the United States and various control strategies to reduce that usage. One of the objects of the study was to consider the cost of reducing cocaine usage by 1 percent in this country through various different control programs. The four control programs studied were defined in the Rand report as:
1. Source country control: Eradicating coca leaves and seizing coca base, cocaine paste, and the final product in the source countries (primarily Peru, Bolivia, and Columbia).
2. Interdiction: Using the U.S. Customs Service, Coast Guard, Army, and Immigration and Naturalization Service to seize cocaine and drug-related assets before the contraband enters the United States.
3. Domestic enforcement: Assigning federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to seize cocaine and related assets within our borders, and arresting, convicting, and imprisoning the Responsible drug dealers and their agents.
4. Treatment of heavy users: Solving the demand side of the problem through outpatient and residential programs.
They found that Option 4-the treatment option-was seven times as cost-effective as option 3, the domestic enforcement option.
Here is how much it would cost to use each option to reduce cocaine usage by exactly 1%:
Option 1: $800 million
Option 2: $360 million
Option 3: $238 million
Option 4: $34 million
Philosophically: Our bodies are property, owned by some one or group of people. Logically, you own your own body, otherwise that would make you a slave, which is illegal in this country. If you are the sole owner of your body, you have the right to do what you want with it. You can tear down your house, burn your furniture, and throw your piano off a cliff. Why wouldn't you be able to do ANYTHING with your own body you see fit? You can't say it is for the safety of the people around you, because then you would have to outlaw guns, knifes, anything poisonous, animals, cars, airplanes, all blunt objects, and hands to keep people perfectly safe. Even then you can kick someone to death. Absolute security is impossible, though absolute liberty is not. I guess I can sum it up with my bottom quote.
That's my opinion, though what do I know, I'm a backward, shroomer, anarchist, ayndroid, wimpy, left-wing, right-wing, glue-sniffing, heartless, brainless, constitution-thumping, porn loving, Godless, reactionary, hippy, pothead, libertarian.
