I guess we'd better ban excessive salt, refined sugar, animal fats, red meat, alcohol, tobacco, dairy, processed food, fast food…

Your neighbor is still doing drugs and you're still paying for his health care. The War on Drugs hasn't changed any of this.

The owner of the road most certainly can make the rules for the road. If you violate those rules the owner of the road can disallow you from using their road. That the owner of the road in this particular case is the State is immaterial.

It allow lawyers to get very wealthy.
It allows those who invest in and run private prisons to get very wealthy.
It allows police departments to purchase all kinds of new toys by confiscating private property.
It allows politicos to snoop and interfere in private lives.
It allows black market thugs to get very wealthy.
It creates disincentives to go to college or get a trade when one can get wealthy by participating in the black market.
That is until they get caught, hire a lawyer, have their property confiscated, are put into prison, and stripped of their right to vote, hold a professional license or bear arms.

Yup, the Drug War is very effective at many things.

Curbing the supply or demand of drugs is not one of them.

Prohibition creates more problems than it solves.

You get corruption on all levels of government, black markets, resources wasted on enforcement, lost tax revenue, clogged courts and jails … yet supply and demand never seems to change.

If supply and demand are not affected, what's the point of prohibition?

Is the point punishment?
If so it doesn't seem to do much good.

Maybe the point is deterrence?
It doesn't seem to do much of that either.

Maybe the point is to erode rights and confiscate property?
It does a bang up job at that!

* Note: messed up my URL on the other comment.

A society truly free tolerates all peaceful actions, from the sublime through the self-destructive.

But,

Then the next post I can't even understand enough to decide if the guy is talking about the same subject.

-Miyaka Yusheto

The problem with that is, if wanted to kill someone, all I would have to do is run someone over when I'm drunk, and I would get away with murder.

Just to make myself more clear, in my scenario above I used the drunk reason for the accident and subsequent treatment; but, in reality the subsequent treatment I opinionated would hold true whether you were drunk, distracted, or just plain to arrogant to care about other drivers.

My point is that if one causes harm to another regardless of why, the treatment should include the concept of allowing the perp to suffer the consequences to the fullest.

Passing laws, enforcing laws, to reduce or eliminate risk is more futile that trying to prohibit substances.

Your arguments are well presented, but show too much of the authoritarian approach to your solutions.

Freedom is risk.

Begin by trying to eliminate any measure of risk and you are simultaneously eliminating the identical measure of freedom as well.

The issue comes down to either we are free, or we are not free. If one truly decides for freedom then one must be fully aware that one is also accepting risk.

Of course the one who wishes to use force or law to curtail or eliminate risk is by definition denying any desire for freedom, or trying to have it both ways, which is impossible.

Having come to this point, and accepting risk as part of freedom, we have to look at how one reduces risk without giving up or curtailing freedom. Yes?

My own opinion is that risk is voluntarily reduced when people are permitted, nay made to, suffer the consequences of their actions, even is said consequence is death.

For instance, say you got smashed on booze, jumped in your auto and ran it into another car and injured people, while severely injuring yourself with life threatening damage.

I would feel comfortable with you being transported to the same hospital as your victims and be made to wait until they had all been treated, and everyone who was in the emergency room treated, before you were even examined. If you died in the meantime…..cheez, tough.

When your children, mother, father, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and neighbors all saw and understood the simple pure idea that a irresponsible person is not going to the head of the line or be treated special or given special attention under any circumstance; and, we are all subject to suffer the effects of our own stupidity……people will reduce their stupidity level dramtaically. It would be a voluntary thing, because people aren't really as dumb as they act, they have just been enculturated to act with disregard for others and still believe that they will be taken care of.

Take away that mental safety net and expose them to their own idiocy and you will see idiocy drop very quickly.

"Drinking or use of any other intoxicant, in private, is not risky to anyone else unless a vehicle is involved."

No…

Two points:

One does not need a vehicle to be a danger to their surroundings while not of sound mind.

The second point is that long term consequences of such behavior may not become evident for several years.

IF a law is necessary, it needs to be structured thus.

1. No one must be allowed to plead diminished capacity for crimes or torts committed while intoxicated. You chose to take the drug, you are responsible for your actions while under the influence.

2. Welfare reform. If you're hooked on drugs, say goodbye to the social welfare net. If it's your choice to take drugs, then it's our choice not to pay for the consequences of it, and if you die on the streets, sorry for you.

3. If you believe you have the right to take drugs, then you have the responsibility to ensure that you can pay for any damages you may incur by your actions while under the influence. Bankrupcy should not be able to discharge debts due to damage caused by those under the influence. Drug users as a group must be willing to pay for the direct tort damages caused by those under the influence who are unable to pay the damages themselves. All such costs must be funded by an excise tax on the drugs.

Good luck getting 1-3 passed.