It's a little piece of that power thing you mentioned a few posts back. People are busy bodies, they like telling other people what to do. An ego thing or maybe a parenting urge misapplied or a tribal survival mechanism.
As far as new drugs and electrodes and whatnot, all very real possibilities, so what? If a person stands up and looks around and decides that death is preferable to life (I'm talking about addicts here, not the casual user, the casual users, let them use casually), let them die. Make an effort to talk them back off the ledge, make your case (the societal you, not the personal). If an addict looks at what you're selling and decides death is better.....what else have you got? Putting people in cages is death anyway, just a less humane form of it.
ARS
Edit: the other part of that, aside from cost and perverse incentives and lack of a moral rationale, is the inconsistency. Not in and of it self, I'm as internally inconsistent as the next guy, but how that particular inconsistency is the camels nose under the tent and pretty soon there are drones flying around Elgin. |
