Right Wrong

Some hypocrisy on Catallexy (News Flash! Water wet!) on the topic of legalisation of drugs, based on a WSJ article.

I think an open and honest debate is a good place to start. At the end of the day I’m not convinced that harm minimisation (at most margins) can be achieved while drugs are illegal. The war on tobacco has largely being [sic] won while the product has remained legal.

Would I be considered out of line to point out that Catxy has without exception opposed every element of that war -- most recently, the blank packaging legislation -- on the grounds of nanny state interference with private property? The last reference, for example, was "the war on tobacco is reaching the stage of pure vindictiveness". Or

Already tobacco tax is probably close to the peak of the Laffer curve. And smokers are ostracised in many places. But there is always more that the Government can do to eliminate smoking.

And once it has won the war on smoking, there are lots of other wars it can fight against those who are not living the healthy life.

That is the vision: a thin, sober, non-smoking, exercising, vegetarian. The future of Australia.

Saying that drug use should be permitted and that the ill effects could be contained if the government introduced a level of control comparable to tobacco control is an argument open to me, as a a liberal interventionist, but not, surely, to a movement that objects on principle to tobacco control.