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One component people leave out of freedom is the freedom to suffer the consequences of their actions.
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You'll note I didn't leave that out. I specifically mentioned it because there is no freedom without responsibility.
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Whether it's possible to be a recreational user of something like heroin I don't know and I don't intend to try (bad enough on the smokes - see hinterland for that thread) but even is some can, most won't. Good luck arguing that all drug addicts would not be addicts if the stuff was legal.
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Let's say you're right and most users of heroin become addicted. Those are the consequences they must deal with for their decision to use heroin. Government is not here to protect us from our own poor decisions. That is impossible and even an attempt to do so would make sure we had no freedom what-so-ever. Whether or not we would still have addicts is not the question. The question is whether we should spend trillions locking up non-criminals and violate the freedom of all Americans because a relatively few people were irresponsible.
If someone uses crack and kills someone, using crack wasn't the crime, killing someone was. If someone takes heroin, gets behind the wheel of a car and kills someone, using heroin wasn't the crime, getting behind the wheel of a car while under the influence was, and if someone is smoking weed and steals all your M&M's, theft was the crime, not getting high.