“In sum, an open society has no realistic choice but to concern itself with the harm that people do—not just to others, but to themselves. It has not only a right but a duty to do this. The question is not whether it should exercise this duty, but only how and under what circumstances. With respect to drugs and addiction, the conventional wisdom may have much still to learn—but it is closer to the truth than those who seek to overthrow it.”
Perhaps so, though it’s too bad someone didn’t tell the British about this when they went to war with China over that country’s insistence on enforcing its regulation of opium use against the British Opium traders. It would be like the Columbian cocaine cartels forcing a treaty on the United States that protected “free trade” in their favorite export to the US. One can imagine how we would like it. The Chinese were peeved too, but in no position to prevent the British from keeping China safe for their drug pushers.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/opiwar1.htm
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
Provides a more detailed account than the previously noted linked article, which reflects the arguments used in the British Parliament to justify the war in this preposterous statement:
“It would be a mistake to view the conflict between the two countries simply as a matter of drug control; it was instead the acting out of deep cultural conflicts between east and west.”
Right.