[small_l_libertarian]

I don't think it's at all liberal to be for the legalization of pot, or any drug. I think that the position they're (NORML) taking is that whether to use drugs or not is a personal choice, and people should suffer the consequences of their choices. It's not up to the nanny state to protect individuals from themselves, "for their own good."

If we as a nation decide that drugs are something that we don't want to have here, then I can understand intercepting drugs at the borders, punishing drug traffickers, even dealers to some extent. But to punish the end user is only to make criminals out of people who ordinarily would not be. If a person is not causing harm to anyone (like by stealing from him, or physically hurting him, etc.), then how can we justify calling him a criminal and locking him up?

Like the Crime show last night with Mudd, for example. The defendant was facing seven years in prison, but he was only charged with possession of meth. Not selling, not trafficking, just having it. Seven years of his life for the crime of possessing a baggie of a verboten substance. Does this guy have a wife? Kids? What are they supposed to do for seven years while he rots in jail?

So what happens when the nanny state decides that a certain book is too dangerous for people to possess and they start putting people on trial for simply possessing that book? Is that okay? Or what about alcohol? Guns?

I think it is a very conservative position to say that the state has absolutely no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot possess, so long as their possession of that item does not infringe on anyone else's rights to life, liberty or property.

[MizSterious]

One small nit to pick with your position on drugs--I don't know about marijuana, but meth is very dangerous. The users become entirely irrational, often violent, and are a menace to society. Other drugs might be the same--I hear most about meth. It seems to act a lot like the old "angel dust" in that it makes people dangerously insane while using it.

[NatureGirl]

I don't think it's at all liberal to be for the legalization of pot, or any drug

I know, I know. After I hit "enter", I thought that Feldman is probably a libertarian. Calling him a lefty was not necessarily a knee-jerk reaction, just something that I should have thought about for another couple of minutes.

As for what constitutes a dangerous substance or "item", we just have to look at history to see what Prohibition accomplished - the funding of a huge criminal class (the Kennedys...NO wait, I meant the Mafia!).

I'm against the continued criminalization of "soft drugs" such as pot. I have problems with some of the more chemical drugs, such as crack and speed, not because of the crime aspect, but because the people who do those drugs tend to get violent as a side-effect.

And now to tie all this back into the thread. I don't really care that the VDs smoke pot, and I could care less about the swinging - just try and picture BVD when she's about 60, and her "lifestyle" catches up with her! But the fact that they did these things with their kids in the home - that starts to smack of negligence.

[Yeti]

I think it is a very conservative position to say that the state has absolutely no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot possess, so long as their possession of that item does not infringe on anyone else's rights to life, liberty or property.

I agree, and I have noticed that the only voices that I hear seriously suggesting legalization in recent years have been conservatives, like Bill Buckley or Newt Gingrich, for example(and, of course, libertarians like yourself. I wish all libertarians were small-l libertarians, the party might get somewhere.). Mr. I-didn't-inhale was all for toughening up the drug laws, and he did.

Also, as a states' rights issue, there is no constitutional basis for federal drug laws unless they involve interstate commerce, the tying of federal highway funds to states' drug laws and drinking age laws is a fraudulent circumvention of the founding fathers' intent.

I have never seen it expounded, but I believe there is indeed justification for banning certain drugs, based on their predictably addictive nature, as poison.

Disclosure: If there is anyone who didn't get it in my post on another thread, I certainly smoked my share of it as a youngin'.