Agree entirely. I think pot should be either decriminalized or legalized, with state and county options in that regard. As far as other drugs, I think they should remain illegal, with more emphasis on returning sentencing to judges, instead of these stupid mandatory minimums, and with a wide range of options available to judges, so they can ascertain whether someone is a recreational user of cocaine or an addict who really needs to be forced into treatment. Right now, to a lot of judges, they have two options - send the addict to jail, or throw the case out on the first technicality that comes along because they don't agree with the mandatory minimum sentence involved (I have seen that happen before).
I differ from a lot of libertarian posters in that I think a community as a whole has a right to examine certain behaviors and decide if a certain probability for harm threshhold is crossed. The classic example of this approach is drunk driving. Even though the vast majority of people who drive under the influence make it home without incident, the folks who do cause crashes create a level of mayhem and harm in gross disproporation to their numbers. So society prohibits ALL drunk driving. Some libertarians believe that we should wait for actual harm to happen before we act, for the drunk driver to hit another car, but I disagree.
And I think hard drug use fits this model as well. Pot doesn't, so the actions taken should reflect this. However, this is a tool that should be used very carefully, because in the wrong hands, some anti-fat activists could use it to block a McDonalds from being built in your community.
That is an excellent point. I think you're the first libertarian I have heard who holds that position.
In my opinion, no on in favor of the "War on Drugs" is conservative. War as a domestic law enforcement model is about as radical and unconservative as you can get. That does not mean that I think all drug use is an inalienable right. Unfortunately in most "drug war" threads one quickly learns those are the only two opinions anyone wants to discuss.
We need more concentration on areas of agreement between conservatives and libertarians. I think we easily have a majority in the country opposed to the "War on Drugs," even if they are opposed to drug legalization. But if the radicals on both sides get to define the terms of the debate, we'll continue with the status quo unchanged.