Comments Elsewhere

Dianne: Not to hijack the thread too much, but then there’s the associated question of why we would jail drug users who are not addicts?

For that matter, why should the government jail drug users who are addicts?

If it’s in the interest of protecting other people from crimes committed by addicts, there are (as you mention above to Robert) already laws against those crimes, without adding drug prohibition on top of it. If it’s in the interest of helping the addicts stop hurting themselves, troubled people stop hurting themselves, then restraining them and locking them in a cage with a bunch of violent criminals seems like a strange way of looking out for their welfare.

Amp,

You’re right about the foolishness of imprisoning drug users. But government-forced “treatment” (which is, in the last resort, always backed up with the threat of prison) is not much better. The whole system of drug prohibition, as such, whether enforced through coercive psychotherapy or through simple imprisonment, is institutionalized sadism against innocent people, being passed off as “for their own good.”