Individual responsibility should apply here. I don't want my rights restricted because other people are fools.
If it's considered acceptable to tell people what they can and cannot put into their bodies because "average" people can't handle it, there's no limiting principle in place to stop our bodies from being controlled by others.
On the other hand, what to do if some people don't act responsibly and get addicted; and then for instance ruin their health or neglect their children. Who should be responsible for helping them go to rehab, fixing their health problems or helping their children? If it means the society has to take care of this, then isn't it also fair that society tries to prevent people from getting addicted in the first place? And prohibiting drugs is one way of trying to do that.
Has it succeeded? No.
Criminalizing it often makes it even more difficult to deal with the societal damage of addiction. Dealing with an addict is difficult, but dealing with an addict who is now a criminal is that much harder.
Society has all sorts of tools to help people who are struggling. Our criminal justice system is one of the least effective.
An addict is harming their family whether drugs are legal or not, and it's obvious from our current situation that their legal status doesn't prevent people from using drugs.
An addict who is now a criminal can be forced into treatment at least. An addict who can freely buy their drugs (because we aren't prosecuting dealers either) and do them on the street anywhere will just die faster (especially with fentanyl).
The war on drugs had tried and failed for decades. All it's done is enrich the cartels, fill prisons with minorities, create an oxycodone epidemic, flood the streets with cheap and deadly fentanyl, and countless other problems.
While the same government "protecting" citizens from harm is corrupt the point of the CIA becomeing drug traffickers on the side [1], making the problem even worse like throwing petrol on a fire.
[1] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/big-whit...
Prohibition has nothing to do with prevention.
I also don't see why it has to be all one way or the other. I agree that people with dependent children have no business taking risks with drugs. like you say, this creates a mess other people are compelled to clean up.
but what if a person doesn't have children (or successfully raised them to be independent adults)? as long as they pay whatever taxes they owe, why care what they do with their time?
Lets imagine a hypothetical drug so we don't have to argue about the effects of real ones. This drug removes the idea of responsibility from your mind when your on it. This drug creates a paradox in your framework. You dictate that individuals have ultimate responsibility. This drug removes any internal idea of responsibility as a concept leading to bizzare and potential dangerous actions from the user.
Would you agree this drug should be banned then?
However they must also bear the cost of any harm done in that state. The problem isn't that someone took a drug, it's that they did X thing to hurt others. Punish X thing, not the drug use.
I acknowledge that this has serious problems because not everyone acts responsibly. But the alternative is to implement a system which removes the basic freedom to control what goes into your own body... and still have people acting irresponsibly anyway.
But with ethanol we tried that once, didn't work out well as you tend to create a police state to prevent it as it's easy to make.
The alternative is worse.
I agree it's unfortunate.
If you say so. I believe prohibition exerts substantial control over our bodies, and also corrodes other aspects of personal freedom (such as the Fourth Amendment in the US).
Not only is possession of any drug for personal use without an intent to distribute not a criminal offence in Spain, neither is consuming said drugs in the privacy of your own home. There is also no legal restriction on growing cannabis or psychedelic mushrooms on private property outside of public view, as long as the amounts are small enough that there is no reason to suspect an intent to distribute it.
I'd like to do that^^.
1. Imagine what would happen to the mafia etc... No more war in mexico for example.
2. Normal people wouldn't just start taking heroine for example
3. Imagine what happens to jails
4. You could use some of the new tax money (which goes to the mafia currently) to hire some medical professionals. That way you could help the really addicted.
5. 100% pure heroin would not destroy the body (it was developed as painkiller). Those junkies are that f*ed up because of the other stuff they pump in their veins. How is that a win for society?
I also believe they were all in error when slavery was legal everywhere.
This is a combination of appeal to authority and appeal to majority.
I don't care if my views are fringe and others choose to not take them seriously as a result. That's outside my control.
People accepting beliefs uncritically is the problem, and that applies equally to nutjob conspiracy theorists as well as people who accept the whatever the current groupthink believes.
A cursory examination of history is all that's needed to know that, at any given point in time, there are many beliefs across society which are just flat out wrong. To think that in 2023 somehow we've finally got it figured out is arrogance.
No, ideas that need to be applied broadly should be judged on a combination of their merits and demerits, and popularity, as there are enforcement and political costs associated with any proposal (as long as the government needs to do make any changes whatsoever).
It would be different if it was a private proposal that will only affect you and immediate family.
To be entirely honest, it seems like you need to rethink this more thoroughly instead of just repeating memorable slogans.