I'm no republican, but the author has left his principle of "as long as it doesn't harm anyone" that he established earlier in this article.
Abortion kills another human being without any accusations, charges, courts, juries, peers, and brings a capital sentence upon a totally innocent American.
Anti-drugs is also born in the realization that drugs harm and kill people. Should a nation have laws that say that people are permitted to kill themselves? Absolutely not. That is too easy a manner to kill others with no investigation to determine if that had actually been the case. "Oh gee...she overdosed; said she wanted to end it all."
Obviously, I disagree with restricting all speech but 'death speech'. Liberals will rage on about 'hate speech', but that's just emotions. 'Death speech', on the other hand, is a threat against the life of another person. It cannot be ignored.
Gambling? Gambling should either be totally legal or totally illegal. If it's a matter of controlled venues by the state, then that's not 'free gambling'. Let Uncle Joe have his Saturday night poker game with real money. Leave him alone.
That is kinda Mr. Stossel's point. Doing drugs is no different than eating crap and not taking care of your own body. But, we are free to do such things. We suffer in a broad society from those choices in neglect but there is no outcry from Mr. Perkins from that. There is other countless bad choices we are free to engage in.