David,

How many hard drug users have you known? In my younger days growing up in NY I knew a few too many. People who are addicted don't quit because they are pregnant, people on drugs (even those who drink alcohol too much) tend to be careless with what they leave laying around the house.

I'm not saying that this justifies the governments policies. I am saying that there needs to be some safeguards to protect the innocent. A 10 or 13 year old is not going to apply for emancipation.

John may have been addressing something other than my question. When people here answers like that though they get very turned off to your legalization message. Having the best political philosophy is all fine and good but you need to gain the voters hearts and minds. How many times in the last two decades have you heard, "It's for the children."

Samantha

Samantha,

I've seen my share of addicts including women who simply couldn't care less about their pregnancy.  I'm not sure what the best action is for dealing with women who continue to abuse drugs while pregnant.  Surely, some kind of intervention would seem appropriate.  Leaving drugs laying around young children could be considered endangerment.

Your initial question didn't bring these issues to mind, and I doubt John's as well.  So, I still read his response as reasonable.  

I hope that helps.

David Jahn

I can't change my stance on heroin, cocaine, etc.  I simply can not do it.  Either way we're talking about pouring in massive amounts of money and effort, whether for clinics, education, etc.  Obviously we'd want to educate and pray that no one makes these mistakes, but drugs that are nearly immediately dehabilitating need to be pursued and disallowed from society.  It's a far cry from medical marijuana to heroin.  I'm not in the party as of yet, I'm a 50-50 split in philosophy between conservative and libertarain, so I can't speak for the popularity among women.  I know mothers and fathers have a different view than I and a different perspective, as I'm still young yet and don't have any children.  That being said, I don't think there's a communication difference when discussing issues, though sometimes people phrase things in means that are not expressed in the best of ways, I know that because I have had this problem myself on occassion. haha.  In terms of women's vote and men's vote, I've never understood why the media is so obsessed with breaking everyone into catagories, what matters is opinions on issues.  What the media did in the Democratic primary fueled sexism and racism, and I think it spoke volumes that they were the party that has all these issues, they rule identity politics and blew up on them.  I don't believe free market advocates have these problems as what matters is the substance of the argument and the validity of argument.  I think people who study issues and debate on philosophical issues and facts, such as nearly everyone I have spoken to on here, conservatives, and libertarians, don't have this issue.  Mental and spiritual aspects are more important than physical aspects for sure and I think that because an emphasis is not given to specific individual groups its misinterpreted as neglecting the groups, so perhaps something is missing for us (or maybe just me) to illustrate that idea.

I advocate turning toward a system like that of Portugal's.

http://opioids.com/legal/index.html


It basically consists of decriminalizing all current illegal narcotics and reducing penalties to fines and treatment for the more serious group. Just like alcohol, public consumption and public intoxication would be a misdemeanor. Drug abuse would be treated as a "social and health problem rather than a criminal one."