Sunday, February 03, 2008

The fatties vs. druggies question

Hope we won't be deciding drug legalization on the merits of the government's anti-obesity campaign.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

"Moreover, since society already permits the use of some mind-altering substances known to be both addictive and harmful ... in prohibiting others it appears hypocritical, arbitrary, and dictatorial. Its hypocrisy, as well as its patent failure to enforce its prohibitions successfully, leads inevitably to a decline in respect for the law as a whole."

Exactly.


The author's only useful contribution:

"The legalizers assume that there is a natural limit to the demand for these drugs, and that if their consumption were legalized, the demand would not increase substantially."

And illegalisers assume that illegality can substantially check demand. Seems to me that factors other than the law are much more significant in driving demand for illicit drugs.

Manuel said...

Yes, but the law is a great factor against drug use, or if not the law precisely, then that thing in human nature that needs and responds to the law. One could even say that the law is also driving demand FOR drugs, if the law is understood partly as the whole system of institutions and teachings and authorities that gave rise to today's permissive liberalism. But if you think that law is not a check on some of the most powerful human passions, then go ahead and get rid of laws against rape etc. (Even getting rid of the speed limit proved disastrous.)