I think people should be allowed to use drugs. However, I agree that its a coin toss. People should make careful decisions about what kinds of substances they choose to consume. Drug use is not always a safe hobby, maybe not ever.
If drug use affects someone else, then it should not be allowed. It invariable always affects someone else either through taking a slice of healthcare or psychiatric side effects.
The whole mantra of "do unto others..." (the golden rule) goes out of the window the moment you start taking drugs.
We all have a social responsibility if we like it or not and taking drugs is not responsible in any way.
(neither is drinking, smoking etc but that's another debate)
Lets say I'm fed up with my life and decide I want to drop out of Stanford and go live in the wild on my own, doing my own hunting, and at large leaving society. This decision is going to greatly affect my parents, my close friends, and (if I have any) my kids.
Should it be illegal though?
Everything we do affects other people. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse, but drugs are not much different from other major life decisions. Deciding to climb Mount Everest is dangerous; you've got a high probability of dying. Deciding to repeat this every year is exceedingly dangerous, experience won't protect you from many of the things that kill climbers. Should mountain climbing be illegal for people who have friends and family/dependents?
There are responsible approaches to drug use, and how it affects me and my ability to be a person should not be your primary concern. If it makes me commit crimes, you now have a case, but until I've committed crimes, my life is my own, and the fact that my life decisions impact my friends does not mean that I do not have control over what those decisions are.
Social responsibility is a construct that should be enforced socially (IE my wife pressuring to leave me and take the kids if I keep mountain climbing), not legally.
He's intimated in other comments in this thread that he'd like to ban alcohol and smoking, as well. I don't think we're dealing with a particularly rational person, and his replies have gone from mere rants to provocation and abuse.
