I don't think people have an inherent right to put addictive substances into their bodies,[1] so I view the issue purely through a cost-benefit lens. And I think it's at least possible that what maximizes social utility is a policy on drugs that stops short of full abolition of the drug war.

[1] I think once certain conduct creates the risk of a harmful social effect (e.g. drunk driving), society is entitled to intervene. It does not have to wait for that harmful social effect to actually come to pass (e.g. an actual accident caused by drunk driving).

It seems like a lot of otherwise ok or fun activities could create the risk of a harmful social effect.

For example I like outdoor sports like kayaking or climbing. If I am killed or seriously injured doing so, it will harm society in a variety of ways--my insurance companies will impose the cost of my care on others, if I can't work then overall economic productivity is reduced, if I'm permanently disabled then Social Security will have to pay for my care, if I die or can't earn a living then my family might need various government aid programs.

Now you might say that these are not really harms, because they are planned for in advance. Insurance companies and government programs employ statisticians to help predict costs and set their rates accordingly. But the same is true of addictive drug use--not everyone will choose to use addictive drugs, and private and government programs can use statistics to predict the level of treatment and assistance they will need to provide.

Or you might say that you're only thinking of direct physical harm, like a drunk driver killing people who are themselves acting responsibly. But there's a difference between regulating the use of dangerous equipment under the influence, and regulating drug availability in general. For adults, alcohol is generally available with little restriction. So the question is, why not other drugs, too?

It seems like the more that we create shared services to help each other out, the more that individual risks become accountable as risks to society, and therefore create opportunities to regulate behavior.

It sure would be nice to have some sort of consistent framework for what gets outlawed and what does not. Right now we have ridiculous situations like: cigarettes are legal but demonized, pot is illegal but tolerated, and alcohol is legal and celebrated, despite being in many ways more dangerous than cigarettes or pot.

And this does not even get into the nascent social battles over food, nutrition, and weight. Which is worse for society, a high-functioning cocaine addict, or an obese person on Medicare who does not manage their diabetes properly? Is drug-testing welfare recipients a means of practical program management, or an offensive intrusion into personal decisions?

> It seems like a lot of otherwise ok or fun activities could create the risk of a harmful social effect.

I think society has the right to regulate lots of different things that create externalized risk.[1] That does not mean that society should ban anything that creates risk.

[1] Note that certain things, like insurance arrangements, are not externalized costs.

I actually agree with the first sentence (well, before you revised the post -- it was concerning community-level regulation). However, practically implementing this would require extremely decentralized decision making (like individual neighborhoods exempting themselves from or choosing to enforce drug laws). As it stands, such a level of granularity is not available and its implementation would mean radical restructuring of how police forces work at a minimum. Otherwise, "community" becomes too broad to be of use.

What about non-addictive, extremely safe drugs (whose LD-50 is many times the active dose)?