Although I personally lean more on the side of keeping recreational drugs illegal, I find the arguments for legalizing them interesting. It really comes down to where do you draw the line between freedom and safety. The price of freedom is that quite a few people will make the wrong decision. The question then becomes... to what extent do we put laws in place to save people from themselves or others from suffering as a result of their bad decisions.

Take infant car seats, for example. They save lives. As a society we value our children. But is it right for the government to force parents to use them? If car seats aren't mandatory, there will be parents who won't use them, and some of their children will die needlessly in car accidents.

I'm a firm believer in car seats, and I will use them whether I have to or not. I don't know that too many people disagree that car seats should be used. However, take something more recently controversial like vaccines. There are those who believe strongly that everyone should get them for their own health and that of their neighbors. There are others who believe the risks of vaccines outweigh the benefits and decline them. At this time the general government belief is that vaccines are a matter of public health and therefore should be mandatory. But those who believe vaccines are dangerous do not want to be forced to take them. Should people be forced to take a medical substance they don't want to take in the name of protecting themselves and their neighbors from communicable diseases?

I see drug legalization in a similar way. There is individual freedom on one hand and responsibility to one's neighbors on the other hand. Where does one draw the line? In the case of alcohol or marijuana, it probably doesn't directly harm anyone if someone locks himself in a room and gets drunk or high. But if in that state he goes out driving, then he really could hurt others. That might seem easy: make the substance legal but make it illegal to drive while under its influence. But what about the scenario where a man with a family to support spends money and time on drugs and neglects his family? Even if he never drives under the influence, he's still hurting others. That happened a lot at one time in American history and fueled prohibition.

My point is there is quite a continuum when it comes to how one's actions negatively affect others. Laws are in place to mitigate the worst excesses, but really can't address all the grievances; if they try they get too draconian. The drug legalization issue really is about where to draw the line between appropriate laws to protect society and needless infringements on personal freedom. It also illustrates that without a solid majority of society striving to be virtuous and morally excellent, all the laws in the world won't be able to protect people from the harm of those whose actions do cause others to suffer. When more people are virtuous and morally excellent you tend to not need so many laws as people will be more motivated to do the right thing.

As a disclaimer I should state that in my argument I am making the assumption that laws are passed and enforced with the benefit of society in mind. I realize in real life that is not always the case. The "war on drugs" is a case in point. Part of the reason it hasn't been effective is that it's been a lie. Our government has pretended to fight drugs while also secretly benefiting from the drug trade. If it actually was about ending the drug running, I could see it being quite effective. For this reason I don't see legalizing drugs as necessarily the right answer to the problem that the "war on drugs" is not working. The answer actually could be prosecute the war so as to win the war with victory being near elimination of the drug trade.