I tend to agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate: what about negative externalities of personal consumption? How do you assign responsibility for burdens on health and social services caused by drug abuse? Someone has to pay to clean up those issues, and while the majority of drug users may be able to maintain their habits without major issues, the minority is a handful. I favor decriminalization, but I can see how a government, faced with the bill, and with only the power to legislate, would try to legislate the problem away.

You make a completely valid point, but I can't help but find it very ironic that that socialization of medicine is used as justification for maintaining government overreach in the war on drugs.

Along the same lines, if someone weighs 500 pounds and yet eats 6000 calories day, it's the same issue. How much should society intervene on people who are absurdly self-destructive. How much freedom should people have to damage themselves so much that society has to pay to rescue them from themselves. There are lots of places you could draw that line.

Just to float the "thick skull" perspective here. Some people believe health care should be treated as a right. We find ourselves wedged into a situation where the damage to an individual caused by the actions of that individual become a cost that must be borne by others.

Not that I agree fully with either perspective. Its a difficult problem. "My body and mine alone" is a great perspective until you break it and need help beyond your own means to fix it.

Edit: Ahh- Thankyou. At this point I can safely say that this is a reliably unpopular opinion. I'm not sure why though. Would someone do me the courtesy of resolving the question for me after you hit that down button:

Why is it my body to unconditionally do with as I please but someone else's responsibility to fix it no matter what? I can't resolve the dissonance here but the notion seems repugnant to all sides of the debate. I'm a big proponent of basic universal healthcare but this seems a big drawback of this approach. I really would like to hear what people think I'm missing.

It's not someone else's responsibility to fix a person's health issues no matter what.. that sort of thinking, in my opinion, is at the root of an incredible amount of government overreach.

Along the same lines, if someone weighs 500 pounds and yet eats 6000 calories day, it's the same issue. How much should society intervene on people who are absurdly self-destructive? How much freedom should people have to damage themselves so much that society has to pay to rescue them from themselves. There are lots of places you could draw that line.

The article is in favor of legalizing drug consumption (when it talks about being in favor of the Portugese model)