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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

You're being unnecessarily defensive. My comment was neither a criticism nor attempt to refute your point of view.

It seems like you and I mostly agree. I mean nothing patronizing when I ask: do you know what inalienable means? It's a great word. I believe the right to do drugs is inalienable: a government does not have the moral authority to tell you not to if that's what you want to do. A law that forbids it is illegitimate. Illegal, even.

> Who said unconstrained

Me. I did. Believe it or not, my perspective was once even far more... radically laissez-faire, so to speak: stick to the principles of each according to their conscience and let the chips fall where they may. Anything less is an unconscionable and illegitimate encroachment on personal freedom. Society would adjust.

Talk about "shadow-boxing". With respect, that's you. You are shadow boxing.

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I seem to have replied twice to your comment and missed a different reply. The octal client for hacker news struggles with comments sometimes. Sorry about that.

To the rest of your comment, yeah I recognize we mostly agree thus I'm not even replying to you directly, I'm defending against all the other people in this thread who go "but dur addicts bad" and can't think past that when it comes to drug policy who may be reading by adding context to your comment from my pov. Sorry about that too.

It's not about being libertarian, it's more utilitarian for me. Prohibition is horrible for everyone but the ultra wealthy and dangerously criminal. I threw out every argument against prohibition kinda all together in my anger at the silliness from engineers on a forum I respect.

There's the math, it's cheaper to sell them taxed drugs and use that money to help addicts than unsuccessful policing, it's more moral than allowing cartels to operate, more humane, etc. There's no argument against it other than being moral police. Prohibition does not do anything other than filter money to waste on cartels and law enforcement.

I agree. I likely never will argue for prohibition, given that I have believed in the principle of an inalienable right to drugs ever since I could ponder these matters.

My perspective on public drug policy has become more nuanced over the years, in that I have come to recognize that those who fear legalization have actual, legitimate points that need to be addressed. For me, that was kind of a huge shift.

But, yes, clearly, charging taxes on drugs to monitor quality and mitigate the social effects of drug use is far more efficient use of our resources than the endless escalation of violence and corruption we have now.

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