Whether I believe, or anyone else believes, drugs should be legalized in America is of no concern. It is a moot matter. The following is irrefutable.

You can't control consensual behavior among adults.

Our society has tried, at the highest levels of government. No doubt, the best example of governmental lawmakers attempting to save Americans from making poor lifestyle choices was the passage of the Volstead Act. The 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution gave way to the prohibition of alcohol during the Roaring 20s, and well into the first third of the 1930s. The Volstead Act was a miserable failure. Liquor possession, manufacturing and sales went underground and continued without disruption. What resulted was the generation of a black market economy that corrupted countless Americans, from nearly every public elected official to the virtually every police officer on the street corner. On December 5, 1933, when Utah's state convention gave its stamp of approval to the 21st Amendment, prohibition officially ended in the United States. Our nation was forced to admit that it was powerless to keep its adult population from choosing whether or not to imbibe in John Barleycorn. Is there no lesson to be learned from this illogical, very expensive and woefully failed experiment? Why does our government choose selective prohibitive legislation, while at the same time ensuring, as written in the Declaration of Independence, "liberty and justice for all?"

If public health, and the physical welfare of all Americans, are truly at the root of street drug illegality then give serious consideration to the following empirical facts.

The number one lifestyle related killer of Americans is food. What is next, restrictive food choice legislation? Showing is the use of nicotine and placing is alcohol consumption. Using illegal drugs runs way off the pace.

The first three aforementioned lifestyle choices are all perfectly legal. Moreover, the federal and most, if not all, state governments reap a bountiful harvest from the so called "sin taxes" levied on nicotine and alcohol. Where is any reasonable logic involved here?

I'm not advocating the use of anything that might cause the medical demise of so much as a single American citizen. However, what is the lesson to be gleaned from the passage and failure of alcohol prohibition? I contend it is what has already been previously established.

You can't control consensual behavior among adults.

Washington, are you listening?

You can't control consensual behavior among adults.

If I can slowly commit suicide with hot dogs, chicken fried steak, Twinkies, pork rinds or any other number of man made and processed foods, then I have should have the right to kill myself by ingesting anything else of my own choosing. If I can pickle my liver and lungs with Jimmy Beam and Pall Malls, and fatten the coffers of multilevel domestic governments at the same time, then I should be legally entitled to kill myself with other intoxicants or inebriants. If I break a law, established to protect Americans from crimes of force or fraud, after choosing to drink myself into a stupor, then I go to jail. No excuses.

Thomas Jefferson, despite all his moral digressions, was right. The third president of the United States is on record as having said, "That government is best that governs least."

Washington, are you listening?

Learn more about this author, Tim Gray.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about A case to legalize drugs in America?
We want to hear your view. Write now!