While I sympathize with Christine Cubbison and Carrie from Gibsonia's travails with those who abuse mind-altering substances, it does not change the fact that each individual has a right to do what they wish to their own body. Legalizing drugs does not translate into toleration for crimes that may be perpetrated while under the influence. Trespassing, disorderly conduct, and driving under the influence are still crimes irrespective of the legality of drugs. In fact, decriminalization would free law enforcement to spend more resources on crimes that involve the violation of someone's rights (i.e. actual crimes) rather than saving someone from their own bad decisions. Moreover, thedis-empowerment of drug gangs, as detailed by Cindy from Chicora in her post, would also free law enforcement to prosecute DUIs and the like--a vital task with which I agree with Lee from PA is effective. Ideologically skewed data, as Laurie from Butler presents, may purport to show problems with decriminalization but still fails to offer a reason for what justification the government has to dictate what one may or may not do to their own body. It is only the idea that a person is not sovereign over themselves and is a mere subject of the State that can underlie the drug laws, a position antithetical to the Constitution. Unfortunately in the current era, the government is the arbiter of what a person can or can not ingest as evidenced by the contradictory stance on tobacco and alcohol, as Mark and Cass from Butler mention, and this absurdity even includes taxpayer subsidies to tobacco farmers.

Cindy from Chicora is right to draw the parallel between illicit drugs and sexual education as both cases illustrate that interventions premised on dogma divorced from reality can never succeed, as James Matson, by citing the latest research discrediting "abstinence-only"education, rightly illustrates.