Stephen: Disclaimers aside, the…
Stephen: Disclaimers aside, the War on Drug Users is currently the greatest violation of civil liberties this country has ever seen.
… Chattel slavery?
Nigel: Jake, why regulate it?
Nearly all “legalize and regulate†arguments are more or less explicitly made from fear that a principled stance against drug regulation as such is going to make us look bad, not going to fly with the electorate, etc. Maybe that’s not Jake’s idea, but the appeal to people’s hand-wringing responses isn’t reassuring.
The problem with this sort of argument is that it treats public opinion and people’s reactions to a suggestion like some kind of inert mass that you have to move around, rather than conclusions that can (should) be changed by giving reasons. I think pandering to people’s terror of unregulated markets is a moral and strategic mistake posing as “reasonableness;†better to emphasize the principled
Anticopyright.