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Frankly, if you want to worry about drugs, it would be more appropriate to be concerned about the scores of potent psychiatric drugs from Ritalin to Prozac that are actively pushed in the US, often turning users into anything from zombies, to space cadets, to walking time bombs.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/the-war-on-some-drugs

Longtime readers know that although I personally abstain from drugs and generally eschew the company of abusive users, I think they should be 100% legal. Not just cannabis. All drugs.

The most important reason is moral and ethical. Your primary possession is your own body. If you don’t own it, and don’t have a right to do whatever you want with it, then you in fact have no rights at all. That’s the main reason why the drug war itself is criminal, and morally insane. The economic, medical, practical, and many other reasons to repeal prohibition are important, but strictly secondary.

People can become addicted to most anything—food, sugar, alcohol, gambling, sleep, sex—you name it. It’s not good when you do too much of absolutely anything. One thing is for sure: You take personal responsibility away from people, they become more, not less, irresponsible.

The so-called “drug problem” is solely due to the fact that recreational drugs are illegal.

Alcohol provides the classic example. Alcohol has been, by far, the most abused substance in the US throughout its history. But the enactment of Prohibition in 1920 not only made abuse worse (for a number of reasons), but created a crime wave, and essentially created the Cosa Nostra. Making a product illegal turns both users and suppliers into criminals, and only makes bluenoses and busybodies happy.

The only answer to the War on Drugs is the same as that to the equally stupid and destructive War on Demon Rum fought during the ’20s—a complete repeal of prohibition, and unregulated legalization.

Will it happen? Not likely. The DEA, FBI, CIA, and numerous state and local agencies, and the drug dealers themselves, have way too big an interest in keeping drugs illegal. But the impending decriminalization and legalization of pot everywhere is a step in the right direction.

War on drugs, war on terror, war on poverty. They all appear to be headed in the same direction.

We don’t do war well. But we keep on trying.

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I am not a number. I am a free man!