crizon

My point was the fact that they are highly likely to make bad choices and _not_ why. Let's say you have a crowd of people in an imaginary room with 2 doors. One is save, the other leads to certain death but has a warning saying that one should not enter the door. You know that some people will still go through the door despite the warning and you have the possibility to simply look the door, wouldn't it be moraly right to look it? Do the people who do make the wrong choice really deserve to die? And to answer you question on how to choose what to allow and what not: Well, obervation and empiric. Obviously you have to draw the line somewhere, but that is what you have to do too if you don't want people to have access to deadly viruses or atomic bombs or other weapons of mass destruction.

wow i did not know that. that is outrageous.

Yeah i didn't make that clear. I meant that when a larger part of a population becomes addicted you most likely get other problems too like increased crimerates, higher medical expenses and economic problems because of the lag of productive people (assuming that those substances do cause medical problems), which will decrease your personal freedom. that is true. so you're saying because everything is dangerous and we can't ban everything, we must allow everything? that sounds nice in theory, but would you allow deadly viruses or atomic bombs for everyone? also, i believe that just because someone tends to make bad decisions for himself, does not make him a bad person or says that he does not have the potential to be a great productive human beeing. you also make decisions for your children who would most likely make very bad decisions if they were on their own. the same thing is accepted for mentally disabled persons. it is actually considered bad not to make a choice for children and mentally disabled people because it is very likely that they will make bad ones. now my point is not why they are unable or are highly likely to make bad decisions (in this example being a child or a mentally disabled person) but that in some cases it is justified to make a choice for someone. coming back to reality: when it is highly likely that a lot of people would make the bad choice and buy these newly legal highly addictive products, then yes one should make the decision for them and ban those products. just because you can make the right decision and live happily without drugs, does not mean that other people have to pay for your freedom with a choice that will lead them (likely) to a miserable life.

actually france has a great health care system. there was a study a while ago that compared health care system from various countries and most european countries were on the top ranks... the US was rank ~37 or so.

not at all. i was just saying that a large drug problem causes other major problems within a society.

I do believe that a complete deregulation of food, drugs and narcotics would in the end decrease your personal freedom and harm the population. Sooner or later companies will discover the imense powers of physical addiction. even right now millions of people are addicted to alcohol and cigarettes although huge sums are spend to educate people on their dangers. think about what would happen if mc donalds or coca cola started to add a nice little substance to their products that would make you feel a little better, but that would eventually make you an addict. sure, a lot of people would avoid these products then but there would be also a lot of people who would buy them, like people buy cigarettes and beer. and that would be just the start. companies could now develop new and maybe extremly effective substances to make people addicted to their products. think about a substance that is far more addictive than heroin and free to buy for everyone just around the corner and advertised everywhere. there is at least a risk that a large number of people would become addicts and that can have a great impact on the general society.. just look at Russia's problems with alcoholism.