What these people never discuss is what homemade drugs, like LSD, and "Meth" do to a person, what crimes are committed under these influences, how readily nearly everyone can make the stuff, (evidently from recipes over the internet), and the cost to society....both in human life, and in the physical cost of rehabing the person, or prison if they commit crimes while under the influence.
It is the "elephant in the room" when it comes to discussing drug legalization.
Basically, although discussed in terms of personal rights versus societal order, there is inevitably going to be a social cost, either in criminal victimization, or medical expenditures.
No matter which way we look at it, the hard drugs are not something a person can use without tremendous physical dependency potentially developing. And that means the cost will be born by the rest of society to get them cleaned up, whether it be the health care system, or the government.
But I have to admit that I have a strong predilection towards individual rights (to screw ourselves up) being protected.
But y'know.. It's like I tell people, with regard to religion. If you have coerce or admonish someone to believe something, they are naturally going to rebel and ignore you.
So maybe just a bit more "demand reduction" education in our schools might help a few kids off of them. Essentially, people using hard drugs (IMO) often suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They use them to "fit in" with the "cool" crowd, alleviate some sense of anxiety or insufficiency.
In fact, while I'm sitting here, I'm asking myself why I actually starting smoking cigarettes. Some excuse that I use, where some work associates tended to tease me (I was in my early 20's) for smoking a pipe, so I converted to cigarettes.
The pipe was bad.. but certainly better smelling and less harmful than breathing that smoke into my lungs...
But I digress... ;0)
Bottom line, I'm definitely torn on this issue and can readily argue either side of it. It's going to be interesting to read other people's opinions and arguments, both pro and con.
Hawk |
