Smoking marijuana isn't the same as building a bomb. If I accidentally light a joint, the people in my immediate radius aren't blown to pieces (although they might choose to get blown).
Not even close. And Marijuana is less dangerous for society and individuals as alcohol, automobiles, etc.
HOWEVER, if we say that anything should be legal as long as it doesn't encroach on someone else's freedom, where do you draw the line with hard drugs such as PCP/Crystal Meth that may increase violent tendencies with the user?
I could potentially see many making the argument that legalizing certain things simply hurts the lower class or keeps them in poverty, such as crack, etc. Should there be rules protecting people who aren't educated enough to make good long term decisions for themselves?
I think runTIME may be making a subtly different argument.
Let's say I have a 1,000 acre ranch and I build a nuclear reactor on it. I go to extreme lengths to make sure it's safe and secure. As far as my neighbors are concerned my operating a nuclear reactor has no impact on them. However, now I have the potential, should I choose, to make nuclear weapons, radiological "dirty" bombs, or otherwise contaminate the general vicinity (for potentially very large values of vicinity) with radioactive byproducts. It is for this reason that the operation of nuclear reactors is highly regulated.
One could imagine how this argument might apply to personal drug use. Drug use itself may not instantly impact anyone else but suppose that, as in personally operating a nuclear reactor, it enabled individuals to have a far greater negative impact on society than other normal human behaviors might.
I don't buy it and I'm not sure if that's the argument that runTIME was making, but it's an interesting argument I think.
Yes. If it turns out that people on PCP or some other hard drug are more dangerous/quicker to violence, is there a limit of how much personal freedom we should grant if there is an increased risk of possible damage to society.
