Comments Elsewhere

Eric,

I don’t see how the case of powerful drugs is any different from the case of other things that can be dangerous to others when used irresponsibly, such as whiskey, automobiles, rifles, tasers, kitchen knives, gasoline, chlorine bleach, or propane grills.

If you handle a potential danger irresponsibly, and somebody gets hurt, then the victim gains an enforceable right to collect damages as compensation for your negligence. That’s a good reason for people to set up courts to do objective fact-finding and make judgments on allegations of negligence. It is no reason at all to create, or to support, a regulatory state that imposes blanket prohibitions and jails anyone who so much as possesses some item that could possibly increase (to some unspecified degree) the likelihood that you’ll harm some unspecified third parties if you happen to use it without taking proper precautions.

Just so we’re clear, what do you suggest having the government do to people who have, say, a dose of PCP in their possession?