I'll look up the Cato study, dgg. Thanks for the heads up. I've been behind on my drug legalization reading since I've been looking up tax laws to rebut people who think income tax is voluntary.

For the record, I wouldn't have a big problem with legalizing drugs (I'd have some, but that traces back to personal bias, not through an objective view of things). But I also don't want to have to shoulder the burden of supporting drug users through my tax dollars. And I tend to think that, should drugs become legal, the number of users would increase at the margin and the costs we're already incurring (as you mentioned) would increase as well. My main complaint with some who argue in favor of drug legalization is an unwillingness to take the responsibility along with the freedom. I'm not saying the Libertarian contingent has that view...but I sure think the Left does.

Goalie

Indeed -- that's how the Nanny State enslaves, by making YOU pay for MY mistakes. After that, it's a quick step to: you have the "right" to control my actions.

Maybe...but the cost decrease of scuttling the WoD would offset that by a stupendous amount.

Try:

http://www.cato.org/current/drug-war/index.html

I'm with Red Meat. Essentially, my reasons for not wanting drugs to be legal are personal, not philosophical. I know too many people who's lives are fucked up because of drugs- not that they're dead, or running around in gangs, they're just useless. They sit around wasting their talent because they're too busy getting high, and it saddens me.

Drugs are already illegal, and all that happens. It happens with alcohol and nicotine as well.

Ultimately, it's not your business what someone else does with his life, provided he harms no one else (and if he does, make the overt harm illegal, not prior restraint).

Freedom starts when you decide to let others make their own decisions, and live with the consequences. The Nanny State starts when people fear and loathe other people's decisions (never their own, of course) and want to control them, "for their own good." That way lies tyranny.