2. Liability and safety. It's safer to assume your pharmacist is giving the right drug and the right amount and the right quality. I am all for reducing the cost and I think we should lower the cost whenever possible, but getting through silk road because it's cheaper/easier to get doesn't meet my standard.
I have seen heroin ruin people's lives and I wish with all my heart that it could be eradicated. However, this is just not possible, and we have to figure out how to live in a world that includes such terrible things. The only people who benefit from criminalization are law enforcement and prison owners.
Not disagreeing with you, but I (personally) have seen far more people's lives ruined by legal drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and various painkillers than I've seen from hard/illegal drugs (heroin/crack/cannabis/etc).
What is this society that you refer to. Surely it can be the people of the nation, because only 30%-ish of the population votes, so the majority can't be said to be in agreement (I also never recall a nation wide vote on the legality of drugs). Are you referring to politicians' decisions? They are an even smaller part of the overall population and don't even represent the people that they are said to (Money in politics etc). Plus, even if 99% of the entire population were to decide that these drugs are dangerous, why is it then ok to violently stop the 1% from doing something that only harms themselves? If that is just, would it the be ok if 51% of people decided that all soda was dangerous and banned that too? What about cheese burgers, we, as a society, have to stop obesity right? What about cars, which kill more people than drugs ever will?
The idea of the morality of democracy is just another version of the might makes right argument.
The choice to let other people choose for you is still a choice.
Yes, choosing not to vote is allowing other people to choose for you. You have the choice to participate in the decision or not, and you choose not to participate. That means you are choosing to allow other people to choose for you.
> Not giving consent to any action of any kind can not give consent
Consent is not the same thing as choice (it may require choice, but it is not equivalent to it.)
Is this only for drugs? If so, why only for drugs? If not, does that mean you want to be governed by popular opinion?
I'm actually astounded someone on HN would make this statement so I'm genuinely interested in the rationale.