My views on cigarettes—which I despise and never have smoked—is that people should educate themselves on the health risks, and then be free to make an informed choice as to whether they want to smoke them or not.
I don't believe in the arbitrary and Tyrannical contraband laws which nanny-staters—whether on the Left or Right—seek to impose on others.
It's absurd for someone who calls himself a "minimal government conservative" to support arbitrary government power—along with the ever-expanding police state and trampling of Constitutional rights which are an integral part of any enforcement apparatus.
Authoritarians on the Left and Right would have the rest of us choose whose version of Tyranny is most palatable. I reject that false choice. I choose actual Liberty, with all of its warts, difficulties, and inconveniences. Education and rehabilitation—not incarceration—is the only legitimate way to address such challenges in a truly Free society...
A conservative also doesn’t want to pay the taxes it takes to treat these “druggies” when they come into the Er when they overdose. A conservative also expects most folks to pull their own weight and to not have to pay the consequences of these druggies’ bad habits...hence their support for laws against abuse of drugs that may foist the cost of a liberal druggie’s bad habits on the rest of us. So when it comes to addictive drugs....nanny state away!