It was rightly banned in Australia. Fuckwits had a tendency of buying it online and then taking huge doses without a break (sensitisation) and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.
A nice reminder to libertarians that, yes you may be smart and careful with risk taking but there are many fuckwits who aren’t and shouldn’t have to suffer because of it unnecessarily.
Some people become unproductive and hurt themselves when on drugs, so the state has decided to enact a war on drugs.
Some people injure themselves trying to procure abortions, so the state has decided no more abortions.
Some protesters cause war recruiting efforts to struggle during Vietnam, which hurts soldiers already deployed, so the state has decided no more anti-war protests.
Some people misuse privacy to commit crimes, so the state has decided that every citizen must be fingerprinted and put into a police database preemptively to prevent crime.
Some people aren't productive enough and others are forced to pick up the slack, so the state has decided to humanely euthanize the disabled to protect workers.
Trust the state, relinquish your freedoms, the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!
If anyone is curious about the history in the US, Ken Burns' doc (based on a book) is really good:
> the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!
Nobody believes this. Everyone is comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to rights and laws they believe should be enforced.
This isn't parody or satire, it's history.
I am not comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to my rights. It's fine to have an opinion, but don't think you speak for everyone.
Without the state none of your rights are protected.
Private parties have never tried to strip me of my right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to bear arms, my right to privacy, my right to private property / the fruits of my labor, etc.
Are you saying you would if there were no federal government?
Nobody needs to respect your rights with government existing either, government just offers the possibility of consequences for people who violate the non-aggression principle.
Maybe? The hypothetical represents a world so alien to the one we live in that it's hard to predict how I would act. What is absolutely assured however is that the biggest assholes in the region are definitely going to do a lot of killing, robbing and raping.
Libertarianism as an ideology does not have the tools to deal with the harms of the latter.
Because we don't live in isolated universes of individuality. When they cause massive damage to their bodies and minds, that cost is not only borne by themselves but by their close circle and society at large. You can argue that prohibition is not the right approach to preventing these problems, but doing the non-optimal thing is better than doing nothing at all.
e.g.
Alcohol is worse than no alcohol, for many reasons.
Smoking cigarettes, obvs.
Eating meat is worse that not eating meat.
Doing woodwork without breathing protection may damage your lungs.
Cleaning with spray cleaning products regularly may damage your lungs.
Sun exposure increases your skin cancer risk.
Running is more likely to cause arthritis than cycling or swimming.
Loud environments may damage your hearing.
Insufficiently frequent ejaculation may increase your risk of prostate cancer.
Yes, I'm being deliberately absurd to make the point, but still: where, and how, to draw the line?
It was like an insult. Like I couldn't rationally decide on the risk of using it.
Then I saw the reddit posts and I got it. I couldn't previously conceptualise that there were actually people like that out there. And these aren't people who intentionally want to hurt themselves either. They just saw the drug online, bought it and thought: "What the heck? It's available so it must be ok." Those people are morons but they still need to be protected from themselves. And nannied.
There are very few things, concepts, or sensations more annoying than a junkie telling everyone about what it's like to be a junkie.
Listening to a fork-tongued megachurch preacher telling you you're going to hell while begging for money is less of a chore than some pothead wondering aloud if people see colors differently.