iccky

I agree with you up to a point. We should not allow people to engage in behavior that seriously effects the rights of others or generally causes them to do so. So if it can be shown that people on crack binges generally start murdering people and stealing TVs, outlawing crack is ok. However, I can't see how this applies to pot.

A second point is that with addictive drugs it is not always a mater of freedom of choice. Once someone is addicted, they do not have the freedom to choose to become not-addicted, or at least have a much reduced freedom to choose this (as a smoker who recently promised his girlfriend he'd quit, I can attest to this). So I think a legitimate argument can be made that anti-drug laws are necessary to keep people from, in a moment of weakness, or peer pressure, or whatever, letting one bad choice take away most of there freedom for the rest of their lives. I think this argument can be taken too far, but I do believe it applies with highly addictive drugs, particularly those that you can become addicted to in a few uses. Obviously, however, it does not apply to pot.

So go ganja