[small_l_libertarian]

Ugh. I said I didn't want to fight and I'm going to do it anyway. Please know that this is not directed at you in particular, PM, because I do think that you're a wonderful lady, and I'm totally willing to agree to disagree.

That said... Illegal does NOT equal immoral. Illegal does NOT equal wrong.

Would you have taken away the children of parents who visited speakeasys? How about parents who kept a bottle of gin under the mattress?

I don't think you would say it was okay to take those parents' children away from them because they possessed or used an illegal substance. Alcohol was illegal, but only because men said so. There is no divinely given commandment that says "Thou shalt not party."

There is a huge chasm between drug use and abuse, and an even bigger chasm between abuse and dealing. If a parent is a drug abuser, to the point where his/her drugs are obviously having a detrimental effect on their kids (dirty, not fed, behind in school, whatever), then I think society has an obligation to step in and protect that child. If a parent is a drug dealer who has large quantities of a valuable substance that other people are willing to steal (or kill for), then I think that society has an obligation to protect that child from the obvious danger posed to him/her.

Absent any real danger to the child(ren), though, I truly can't see any way to justify calling those parents criminals, or take their children away, or lock them up. That would be an evil thing to do, breaking up a family because of some stupid law.

[Yeti]

That said... Illegal does NOT equal immoral. Illegal does NOT equal wrong.

An important point, I hate coming in late!

Drugs would not lead to association with unsavory characters if they were not illegal. The point you make, p-mom, is that the laws against drugs cause harm, not that the drugs cause harm.

Likewise with other examples(robbery, drug-related homicides, gang violence) that try to blame the substance for a problem that is created by the laws against them. There wouldn't be the gang-war over drug dealing turf, anymore than there is gang-war over beer-dealing turf, if you could buy it in the grocery store.