[hunter112]

Either the government (as the representatives of the people) has the right to ban or tax something out of existance, or it doesn't. Those using the slippery slope argument (first its cigarettes, then its cheeseburgers) already lost that battle when drugs were made illegal. Somewhere between the libertarian ideal of "everything's OK for everybody", and the left-wing "ban everything that might ever cause one miniscule bit of harm to the universe", is the idea of a middle ground betwixt those extremes.

Right now, most people can distinguish between tobacco, which has zero nutritive value, and cheeseburgers, which have some properties as food. If the lefties convince enough people that they're right about this and other parts of their agenda, then we'll have a lot more to worry about than where to find a burger den. Every day, we live in the middle, between the extremes on all of hundreds of issues, and a slight movement towards one side or the other is not going to bring people's lives crashing down.

Face it, more people can find something wrong with crack cocaine than with aspirin, and more people can find something wrong with tobacco than with cheeseburgers. That's how the balance is set. If you'd REALLY like to stop the slide, then persuade people that the extremists are misguided, but Chicken Little "the sky is falling" rhetoric is not going to convince anyone.

[morjon]

They will have to pry my Big Mac from my cold, dead, fat hands!

[Dakmar]

1) The Government (Federal) doesn't have the right to do anything unless it is specifically given that right in the Constitution.
2) The power of Taxation was never meant to be used for social engineering - its sole purpose is to raise revenue. The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

[tacticalogic]

While it is true that the sky is not falling, it is also true that fedgov is not what's holding it up there.

[albee]

...and the left-wing "ban everything that might ever cause one miniscule bit of harm to the universe", is the idea of a middle ground betwixt those extremes.

How many lives would be saved if the Government banned sex for homosexuals and intraveneous drug users....or at least put a high enough tax to force them to stop those dangerous activities?

[eno_]

Drugs used to be legal. Even really bad drugs. Crack still exists, and there is no reason to thinks laws have anything to do with why the "crack epidemic" is no longer in the news. There are many worse and more dangerous things than doing drugs that are perfectly legal. The point is that middle ground may be more toward the libertarian end of the spectrum than you have been conditions by Drug War propaganda to think.