> The idea that anyone has the right to regulate someone else's life based on morality is deeply puritanical I'm saying nothing of morality, and speaking only

> The idea that anyone has the right to regulate someone else's life based on morality is deeply puritanical I'm saying nothing of morality, and speaking only of practicality. Absolute personal freedom is a beautiful ideal, in the same sense as world peace or the eradication of hunger; we should strive to achieve those ideals using every tool at our disposal. But people (and societies) are extremely complicated, and in practice, one person's freedom can mean that another's is taken away. My freedom to play loud music at 3am removes your freedom to sleep soundly through the night. The premise of a social contract exists to seek a balance that maximizes freedom for everyone. Just because it doesn't always work isn't a reason to abandon the idea outright. On the issue of drugs specifically, I think it's simply naive to pretend that easy and legal access to hard drugs won't have profound unintended negative effects on those besides the users themselves. I think we need custom-tailored policies for each drug that seek to strike a balance between personal freedom and the good of society (which is code for "the freedom of everybody else to not be fucked with by drug addicts").