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You wrote, "And yet now you insist there are rules and then there are rules. Lies and little white lies, in other words? Thank you for saving me from having to demonstrate the absurdity of this argument any further."

No, I adhere to the law, as do most people. I granted you the point on, say, creeping a few miles over the speed limit, as a breaking of the law. But there are graduations in the law, which is why there are such things as misdemeanors and felonies. Further, you didn't address the consequences of buying dope: who profits, who dies, or the effect on whole communities where drug use is rampant. The absurdity lies with you: an inveterate dope smoker hiding behind a smokescreen of do-what-thou-wilt libertarianism.

Lastly, you've used a tone bordering somewhere between patronizing and accusatory when referring to my former political beliefs, as if those once-held views somehow taint my arguments now. I tell you what, when I did become a conservative, I never imagined I would hear another conservative proudly boast of buying and using drugs.

Further, you didn't address the consequences of buying dope: who profits, who dies, or the effect on whole communities where drug use is rampant.

Who profits? Drug dealers, corrupt police, politicians and bureaucrats.

Who dies? Drug dealers fighting over turf. Every drug dealer that dies or goes to prison is quickly replaced by another. Innocent people die when hit by stray bullets. The drug policy -- prohibition -- creates the black market for drugs. Just like it did with alcohol prohibition. Prohibition creates huge black market profits selling drugs thus turf battle ensue. Most deaths are overdose from indeterminate quality of drugs. No Budweiser dealers fighting turf battles. Budweiser has quality control of their beer.

Communities where drug use is rampant? In 1916, 1.3% of the population was addicted to drugs. In 1966, when Nixon created the War On Drugs, 1.3% of the population was addicted to drugs. In 2000, 1.3% of the population was addicted to drugs.

After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over half-a-trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, our confined population has quadrupled over a 20 years period making building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.6 million for nonviolent drug offenses -- more per capita than any country in the world. The United States has 4.6 percent of the population of the world but 22.5 percent of the world's prisoners. LEAP

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them." - Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged

Private prison contractors lobby government officials to create more mandatory minimum laws.

Further, you didn't address the consequences of buying dope: who profits, who dies, or the effect on whole communities where drug use is rampant. The absurdity lies with you: an inveterate dope smoker hiding behind a smokescreen of do-what-thou-wilt libertarianism.

Criminals profit, criminals die, and communities go to hell when criminals establish and fight over markets to sell their product. This is less a result of drugs than it is of the Drug War. And I hide behind no smoke screen: I'm a free man. I do what I will.

Lastly, you've used a tone bordering somewhere between patronizing and accusatory when referring to my former political beliefs, as if those once-held views somehow taint my arguments now. I tell you what, when I did become a conservative, I never imagined I would hear another conservative proudly boast of buying and using drugs.

I'm sorry, but your former political beliefs color your current ones quite vividly. You haven't become a conservative so much as you've switched allegiance to a different master---in other words, you've traded one form of statism for another. You might be a Republican because now you pull the lever for the GOP, but "Republican" and "conservative" are not necessarily one and the same.
The very core belief of conservatism is that sovereignty resides in the individual. Does not individual sovereignty include the right to determine what goes into one's own body?