"Hey wombat, since you believe in government sooo much. When the next big disaster comes I'll see you at the dome. NOT!"
Hardy, har, har.
The issue isn't government, moron, it's human nature!
Thos people in New Orleans drowned because it was their nature to take te easy way out: i.e. depend on someone else to do the heavy lifteing of saving them. It's just the result of extraordinary coincidence, and 40 years of democratic party propaganda, that they depended upon government to do it for them. Right aftere they indulged in the "it'll never happen to me" dilectic of human nature.
Quite frankly, government, at all levels, is a reflection of the citizens. If the citizens are reasonably inoformed and serious, they get government that works. If not, they get Ray Nagin and manage to give Phantom a job.
By the way, the fact that you work for government tells me that productive and lucrative private sector employment is probably beyond your capacity, and if I had to guess, you;re probably a union employee as well. Please don't insult anyone's intelligence with this fallacy that you somehow "live the belly of the beast" as some sort of defense against it's eeventual excesses. You probably do so because you are most likely lazy, unmotivated, and with the shield of the union, unfireable.
getting back to the original point, DRUGS themsleves are not the problem. What people do in order to get them, use them, sell them and make a living off of them, are. That's what society wishes to protect itself from. Your interest in this regard seems to be whether or not such action interferes with your next joint.
You are not standing up fo rsome prinicple; you are being selfish and justfying it by trying to frame the question as a matter of rights and privacy. Got news for ya, pal; the individual's and privacy stop at the tip of his/her nose. Beyond that, there's a common area that we all have to somehow manage to live in. If you want to fire up a joint or speedball, then. Pleasethat's your problem, don't make it mine by supporting the criminal enterprises that supply you while making life for the rest of us a potential hell.
Our right to safety from criminals and random violence far outweigh your right to put whatever you want in your body under the guise of enjoying a freedom. Freedom, in case you forgot, comes with responsbilities, and just like a good democrat you want the right but not the corresponding responsibility.
That mnakes you just as dangerous, in my eyes, as any turban-headed idiot with a death-wiish and a ginned up historical grievance.