[solipsism]

drug use is a victimless crime

That's not remotely true. Use of certain drugs (such as heroin) leads to horrible expectations for children of addicts. These children can only be thought of as victims of heroin use.

Now I'm not saying that should be used to curtail the freedom of non-parents. But the experience of children shouldn't be ignored either.

And I'm the first person who will agree that alcohol abuse in the home leads to horrible expectations for children as well.

try to manage the down-sides of legalization the same way we do with all other legalized vice like gambling (state lotteries(!)) and alcohol

Well, we don't do a good job of this. Alcohol has a devastating effect on lives (but of course not all lives, save your down votes recreational drinkers)

[eyelidlessness]

I was raised by an alcoholic. You’re not wrong that drug abuse affects others, and yes kids. But prohibition not only doesn’t address that, it amplifies it.

I wasn’t just raised by an alcoholic. I was raised by an addict. Being dragged bar to bar, party to party, neglected and abused while my mom was drinking was one thing.

Being loaded up in a car to far flung places up and down the mid-Atlantic in the middle of the night for god knows what was another thing.

I have more specific reasons I favor full legalization of drugs, but “think of the children” definitely falls flat for my experience. If drugs were legal I sincerely doubt I would have spent a considerable amount of my childhood waking up 100s of miles from home, people I cared about in jail, probably a great deal of risk I was put in and many others as well.

[scaramanga]

The question here is whether drug prohibition is a victimless crime. And it's clearly not.

Besides, many _users_ of heroin are medicinal users who do not have victims (elderly patients on the NHS for example). You are conflating drug use with problematic drug use and concluding that problematic drug use is problematic, which is a tautology.

[solipsism]

You are conflating drug use with problematic drug use

Is this like conflating speeding with problematic speeding? Some things are worth making illegal because of their potential effect on society.

That said.. in what way did I conflate those things? I specifically said Now I'm not saying that should be used to curtail the freedom of non-parents. Which clearly leaves open the possibility of carving out reasonable uses of a drug.