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--Robert D. $utton A specter is haunting America�the specter of Prohibition. Mankind�s love affair with this demon goes back thousands of years. It all began when the first Inquisitor said to the first heretic (before lighting him on fire): "It�s for your own good." "It�s for your own good." The magic words that justify any mountain of corpses�provided it starts as a pile of good intentions. The belief that "Love thy neighbors" means "Force thy neighbors," if force will "help" them achieve what one thinks their goals ought to be. The claim that such force is necessary to free the irrational from the chains of vice�that one may bash a man�s brains in, to assist him in using them. "It�s for your own good." Those five words, and everything they imply, are the soul and sanction of the War on Drugs�the naked essence that remains when you strip away all the layers of rationalizations and obfuscations of its supporters. I have devoted four months of intensive research to stripping away these layers of deception, and my "findings of fact" are included in the appendix to this article. Therein, the reader shall find ample evidence that, judged by its consequences, the War on Drugs is not only a dismal failure, but a greater danger to all Americans�user and non-user alike�than drugs themselves. But I do not wish to start by discussing the disastrous consequences of prohibition. Such empirical claims may be necessary to win individual battles against drug warriors�and that is why I have included them�but they are not sufficient to win the war. All the prohibitionists� consequence-based arguments can be chopped to pieces today. But, like weeds, they will grow back tomorrow, resurrected by the latest "study" of some state-subsidized quackademic. The only way to kill weeds is to yank them out by their roots. The only way to kill consequence-based arguments is to make them irrelevant�which means, to yank out their philosophical roots. The root of prohibition is the belief, apparently accepted by a majority of Americans, that individuals can and SHOULD be coerced "for their own good." As long as this vicious doctrine is accepted, no bad consequences arising from prohibition will be enough to end it. If and when such paternalism is morally rejected, none of its "benefits" (if such exist) will be enough to save it�and America will have exorcised the specter of Prohibition once and for all. But to reject paternalism requires that one accept and uphold the opposite view: that your life is YOURS, and that YOU�and ONLY you�are responsible for it. Your life is your own. Accept that premise, and the rest follows. (Reject it, and you are a slave already: only a slave does not own himself.) If your life is yours, then it is YOURS to dispose of in any manner�and for any purpose�you choose. Ownership includes the right of use and disposal, else it is an empty deed. Nor does the right to use one�s property require that others approve of what one does with it, only that one respects the equal right of others. So long as another does not invade our lives or property, we have no right to invade his. We must, in Robert Frost�s eloquent phrase, "respect every man�s right to go to hell in his own way"�provided only that he does not force us to come with him. Your life is your own�do with it what you will. This is the message we send by legalizing drugs. Drug warriors have argued (at least by implication) that this is the wrong message. And it would be�if we wanted to condition people to a life of selfless obedience to Big Brother, and abject dependence on the Nanny State. The last thing a master wants to tell his slaves is that they are their OWN masters. If, however, we want people to take responsibility for their own lives (as, it is argued, drug users must do), then surely there is no better message than self-ownership. Granted, we cannot guarantee that individuals will always take responsibility for what they own�but we surely cannot ask them to take responsibility for what they do NOT own. Just as a man is more likely to take care of his car if it is truly HIS, so it goes with his LIFE. But this is a secondary consequence. Self-ownership is not just a convenient inducement to self-responsibility�it is the EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to it. The most irresponsible owner, provided he respects the rights of others, still has the inalienable right to manage his own property�without our unrequested "help." That we believe we can manage it far better than he, does not alter the fact that it is HIS property, for which HE is solely responsible. What is true of private property in general, is especially true of that MOST private property in particular. The only one who is�or has the right to be�responsible for a life, is the (adult) individual who LIVES it. Others may benefit if he leads a happy, productive life. But that benefit is a bonus to be accepted gratefully, not an entitlement to be claimed at gunpoint. The individual is an end-in-himself, not a milch-cow who exists for the benefit of others�and whether he decides to "be all that he can be," or to "go to hell in his own way," is ultimately nobody�s business but his own. THIS is what needs to be said to all the presumptuous paternalists who make the drug war possible. To those who claim the right to force others "for their own good," the only proper response is: "Get a life�this one�s taken."
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