Today in the Washington Post Michael Gerson went after Rep. Ron Paul for his Libertarian stance on policy that was on display in the first Republican freak show, er debate in South Carolina last week. At issue was the idea that things like prostitution and drugs should be decriminalized, including highly addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Now, I am not one to normally defend Rep. Paul's positions, I find most of them really pernicious but on the issues of ending our foreign wars and decriminalization of drugs marijuana we have a little bit of commonality.
I get where he is coming form on the harder drugs as well. After all we have addicts to these substances, people who want to use them have very little trouble finding them, and the cost of trying interdict the drugs and shut down the drug trade is huge and frankly sunk costs because we are not actually shutting this business down, just managing it to a chronic level.
I am not sure that we actually have to legalize these drugs, after all if we could decouple marijuana from the harder drugs by legalizing it there is evidence that less people would be exposed to drug dealers that want to push the more expensive, more profitable and addictive drugs like cocaine or heroin
In any case Mr. Gerson uses the ideas that Rep. Paul expounds to write him out of serious contention for the Republican nomination. Not because of policy arguments but because he believes that it is important for government to set the boundaries of behavior for citizens, for their own good!
Gerson gives this example:
Even by this permissive standard, drug legalization fails. The de facto decriminalization of drugs in some neighborhoods - say, in Washington, D.C. - has encouraged widespread addiction. Children, freed from the care of their addicted parents, have the liberty to play in parks decorated by used needles. Addicts are liberated into lives of prostitution and homelessness. Welcome to Paulsville, where people are free to take soul-destroying substances and debase their bodies to support their "personal habits."
|
