From The Liberator Online
published by the Advocates for Self-Government
Dr. Mary Ruwart is a leading expert in libertarian communication. [IPR note: She is also an at large member of the Libertarian National Commitee, and is believed to be running for reelection to that position.] In this column she offers short answers to real questions about libertarianism.To submit questions to Dr. Ruwart, see end of column.
Are libertarians aware of safety concerns regarding legal marijuana?
QUESTION: I think libertarians are wrong to support legal marijuana. Do you really think it wise to smoke pot and work with machinery, cars, trains, planes, marijuana leafor motorcycles, or weapons? Do you want to risk your child’s bus ride to school, or a field trip, after the driver has smoked pot? Or do you want the captain of your plane to smoke pot prior to your trip to Bermuda?
MY SHORT ANSWER: Libertarians agree with you that no one should drive or operate machinery or engage in similar behavior while impaired by alcohol or drugs. Further, libertarians believe that employers have the right to require their employees to take performance tests or drug tests, and fire them if they take anything — even prescription medication — that imperils their coworkers or customers.
However, why shouldn’t someone be free to smoke pot, drink alcohol, or use other substances, in the privacy of their own home? If there is no harm to others, there is no foul.
One could legitimately argue that the use of marijuana and other currently-illegal drugs may harm some users’ long term health. However, the same is true of many, many substances that are completely legal, ranging from alcohol and tobacco to fat, salt, sugar, and so on. Chronic overeating is especially damaging, yet having our calorie consumption regulated by the “Twinkie police” would be prohibitively expensive and invasive as well as outrageous.
We all make choices everyday that compromise our health. People die every year in sporting accidents, but the idea of prohibiting skiing, skydiving, and scuba seems ridiculous. Some people have higher thresholds for risks, and take chances that other people would not. That’s their right — as long as they don’t endanger others.
Living is dangerous and death is just a matter of time. We may want to spend life enjoying it as we see fit, rather than trying to prohibit others from doing so!
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LEARN MORE (suggested reading from the Liberator Online editor):
* “Legalize All Drugs” by John Stossel: “After years of reporting on the drug war, I’m convinced that this ‘war’ does more harm than any drug,” writes
the award-winning libertarian journalist in this short column that challenges many common beliefs about marijuana and other drugs.
* “Legalize It” by Deroy Murdock: In this short article, the popular conservative nationally syndicated columnist says: “If consenting adults wish to spark up and watch The Simpsons inside a private home, that should be as lawful as doing so after sipping red wine.
“Naturally, those who light up, then head for the highway should be prosecuted for driving under the influence. Ditto those who operate heavy machinery while stoned. …
“But when it comes to policing grown-ups at leisure, the war on marijuana is sillier than a weed-fueled giggle. The same government that permits Americans to soften the edges of modern life with Xanax, Tylenol PM, Lotto, and Jagermeister immediately should put a match to the entire anti-pot project.”
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Got questions? Dr. Ruwart has answers! If you’d like answers to YOUR “tough questions” on libertarian issues, email Dr. Ruwart at: [email protected]
Due to volume, Dr. Ruwart can’t personally acknowledge all emails. But we’ll run the best questions and answers in upcoming issues.
Chris L wrote: “If you use marijuana in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt your family and children in many ways, (you as well) so it is not a harmless act…”
If you play Worlds of Warcraft in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt yoru family and children in many ways, “you as well) so it is not a harmless act…
The operative part of the sentence, you see, is “AND YOU BECOME AN ADDICT.”
We can’t outlaw addiction. People are addicted to caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, video games, nasal spray, sex, gambling… Unless we would outlaw anything and everything that can possibly be addictive (including food, by the way), this is not reasonable.
So we can’t outlaw things simply for being addictive. We can’t outlaw things for being dangerous because then we’d have to do without gasoline, insect killer, knives, ice picks, power drills, lawn mowers, cars…
Then what justification do we really have for maintaining prohibition on marijuana?
Sandy @ 9, you forgot the last ditch effort mantra of the collective-mind, the one that they fall back on when all else fails: “We have to protect the CHILDREN!” 🙂
“Mary Mary quite contrary, trim that pussy it’s so damn hairy.”
Chris L. wrote “If you use marijuana in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt your family and children in many ways, (you as well) so it is not a harmless act…”
Chris, shopping can be addicting. Shall we outlaw all retail and online sales because shopping addicts have plunged many thousands of American families into toxic levels of credit card debt? Families have become homeless and even been destroyed because of shopping addiction.
Shall we legalize for recreational use all regulated and controlled substances? If we did, the criminal levels of corruption in the FDA would decline, drug companies would not have to monopolize our elected representatives’ attention to build their market bases, and individuals could make their own decisions regarding what substances entered their bodies.
It’s all too easy to follow the mainstream political attitude which teaches distrust in the individual’s ability to function without government tutelage. This country was founded, and some few of us retain the goal, for the individual to retain as much autonomy as possible in a peaceful society. The long decline into police-state mentality wherein government controls every aspect of the lives of natural persons can be reversed. It begins with natural persons demanding their natural rights.
The right to choose for oneself what one ingests IS a natural right. This includes the right to make unwise choices and end up dying young.
Insurance companies and other collective-minded institutions love to argue for loss of liberty by saying things like “if only one life is saved, it’s worth…[massive loss of liberty dressed up as a small sacrifice].” Reverse this thought and ask yourself, “Why must I and every other living natural person in this [city, state, country] lose our liberty to … ? How many lives were sacrificed to win us all this liberty?”
It’s already illegal to operate machinery or vehicles while impaired, even by sleep deprivation, to the point where you damage someone else’s property or life.
This seems a sort of cornerstone of Libertarianism, that if something you’re doing is not infringing on the rights of others (harming someone, damaging their property, etc), it’s not their business. And in most if not all instances where it does, there’s already a law against that infringement.
what 9/11 MEANT like Thompson
Well of course Dr. Thompson was a fraud. He was a parody of his own fictitious alter-ego. But, he was no moron. He was prescient enough on 9/11 to know exactly what that event held in store for all of us. Nobody was able to articulate what 9/11 like Thompson within 24 hours of the event:
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1996493
Also, if you can smoke marijuana in your home but not around your children, how is that to be monitored?
If you can have sex in your home but not with your children, how is that to be monitored?
If you can use a hammer in your home but not on your children’s heads, how is that to be monitored?
If you use marijuana in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt your family and children in many ways, (you as well) so it is not a harmless act
If you use alcohol in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt your family and children in many ways, (you as well) so it is not a harmless act.
Obviously, anything and everything that could possibly harm someone, even indirectly, should be prohibited and the state should monitor what goes on inside of all homes just to be certain that prohibited contraband is not being used.
Perhaps it is time for the state to reconsider the prohibition of alcohol since drug prohibition has worked so well. Right?
We are told that childhood obesity has become a crisis. Perhaps food must be regulated and diets strictly monitored by the state.
This is all madness. Some people just need to get a life and mind their own fucking business.
By the way, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the initiative that takes away the right of a business owner to drug test employees.
http://www.taxcannabis.org/index.php/pages/initiative/
Hunter Thompson was a fucking moron and fraud. Just like the opponents of Prop 14.
We support legal marijuana though.
Singed, The Committee of United Peoples for Prop 14
The Marijuana legalization measure on the Nov. ballot in California takes away the right of a business owner to drug test employees (affirmed in above answer, so does this mean that libertarians should be against this initiative?
Also, does the privacy of your home include your property, on which 25 square feet of marijuana could be grown, even next to a school, even though your neighbors with children don’t like it? The measure does not allow cities to restrict this “right.”
Also, if you can smoke marijuana in your home but not around your children, how is that to be monitored?
If you use marijuana in your home and you become an addict, it will hurt your family and children in many ways, (you as well) so it is not a harmless act (see draft of Am Psych Ass for DSMV draft for definitions of marijuana addictions).
Regarding prescription drugs, they are regulated. Should they be “legalized” for recreation?
Do you really think it wise to smoke pot and work with machinery, cars, trains, planes, marijuana leafor motorcycles, or weapons?
Who asked this question?
There’s no way I can prove it, but I strongly suspect this person had consumed a large dose of legal anti-anxiety medication combined with a pint of cheap legal vodka before they asked this question.
Libertarians agree with you that no one should drive or operate machinery or engage in similar behavior while impaired by alcohol or drugs.
I would disagree with this statement. Dr. Hunter Thompson did extensive research regarding driving and use of weapons while using drugs and his reports do not indicate negative consequences for others. Although, it might be unwise to operate “marijuana leafor motorcycles” when one is totally zonked on Blue Skunk #9.
I would simply advise whoever asked this question to take an additional 2 mg of xanax and simply don’t worry about what others might be doing.
Legalized marijuana does not mean you have the legal right to be high anytime. Do you have the right to drink beer at work? Why not, beer is legal? Legalized marijuana means that people are not locked up for having a natural plant in their posession. There will still be restrictions on when you can be under the influence of the plant. If your surgeon was high on legal pain killers and messed up your operation, do you think a lawyer cound make a case to sue even if the pain killers were legally obtained? By the way, your school bus driver might be high every morning now, it is not like they need pot to be legal in order to obtain it today. Prohibition is a waste of tax money because it does not achieve what it sets out to do. Only a fool keeps paying for something that does not work.