This, admittedly, will reduce the leverage the state has today against its citizens and its ability to intrude on their lives, preferences, privacy, and leisure. Bureaucrats and politicians may find this abhorrent. Freedom loving people should rejoice.
APPENDIX - Should Drugs be Legalized?
The decriminalization of drugs is a tangled issue involving many separate moral/ethical and practical strands which can, probably, be summarized thus:
(a) Whose body is it anyway? Where do I start and the government begins? What gives the state the right to intervene in decisions pertaining only to my self and contravene them?
PRACTICAL:
The government exercises similar "rights" in other cases (abortion, military conscription, sex)
(b) Is the government the optimal moral agent, the best or the right arbiter, as far as drug abuse is concerned?
PRACTICAL:
For instance, governments collaborate with the illicit drug trade when it fits their realpolitik purposes.
(c) Is substance abuse a personal or a social choice? Can one limit the implications, repercussions and outcomes of one's choices in general and of the choice to abuse drugs, in particular? If the drug abuser in effect makes decisions for others, too - does it justify the intervention of the state? Is the state the agent of society, is it the only agent of society and is it the right agent of society in the case of drug abuse?
(d) What is the difference (in rigorous philosophical principle) between legal and illegal substances? Is it something in the nature of the substances? In the usage and what follows? In the structure of society? Is it a moral fashion?
PRACTICAL:
Does scientific research support or refute common myths and ethos regarding drugs and their abuse?
Is scientific research influenced by the current anti-drugs crusade and hype? Are certain facts suppressed and certain subjects left unexplored?
(e) Should drugs be decriminalized for certain purposes (e.g., marijuana and glaucoma)? If so, where should the line be drawn and by whom?
PRACTICAL:
APPENDIX - Should Drugs be Legalized?
The decriminalization of drugs is a tangled issue involving many separate moral/ethical and practical strands which can, probably, be summarized thus:
(a) Whose body is it anyway? Where do I start and the government begins? What gives the state the right to intervene in decisions pertaining only to my self and contravene them?
The government exercises similar "rights" in other cases (abortion, military conscription, sex)
(b) Is the government the optimal moral agent, the best or the right arbiter, as far as drug abuse is concerned?
PRACTICAL:
For instance, governments collaborate with the illicit drug trade when it fits their realpolitik purposes.
(c) Is substance abuse a personal or a social choice? Can one limit the implications, repercussions and outcomes of one's choices in general and of the choice to abuse drugs, in particular? If the drug abuser in effect makes decisions for others, too - does it justify the intervention of the state? Is the state the agent of society, is it the only agent of society and is it the right agent of society in the case of drug abuse?
(d) What is the difference (in rigorous philosophical principle) between legal and illegal substances? Is it something in the nature of the substances? In the usage and what follows? In the structure of society? Is it a moral fashion?
PRACTICAL:
Does scientific research support or refute common myths and ethos regarding drugs and their abuse?
Is scientific research influenced by the current anti-drugs crusade and hype? Are certain facts suppressed and certain subjects left unexplored?
(e) Should drugs be decriminalized for certain purposes (e.g., marijuana and glaucoma)? If so, where should the line be drawn and by whom?
PRACTICAL:
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