Weed legalized in Cali and age to buy Tobacco is raised to 21. Seems weird to celebrate both.

[DanTex]

33. Unless you think heroin and meth should be legal, then the government is going to be

regulating what people can put in their bodies.

And actually, it doesn't end there. Because even if heroin and meth are legalized, the government is still going to regulate medical drugs, not just prescription drugs but also things like anesthetics. Trust me, you don't want any jackass to be able to go to a gas station and buy hospital grade pharmaceuticals.

The purist libertarian approach just doesn't work. Milton Friedman thought there shouldn't be any medical licensing, anyone should be able to perform surgery, and the free market would sort it out. That experiment has never been tried, but if it did, it wouldn't end well.

Reality is, personal freedom and public health concerns need to be balanced. About the age thing, the truth is, people start smoking in their teens and early twenties, and then get hooked. For example, me. And then they need to quit. For example, me. Most people manage to quit, but some don't and some of the ones that don't end up dying from it. People don't start smoking when they are 30. Most smokers want to quit, and if they could go back and never start smoking, they would.

Pot is different because it's not addictive. Alcohol is somewhere in the middle, it is addictive, though not as much as nicotine. But the health effects of drinking are pretty bad.

On the other hand, it can't be denied that recreational drugs are really fun. And, yeah, the argument adults should be able to decide for themselves whether the enjoyment of drinking/smoking/whatever outweighs the health damage is a strong one.

But it's not the only one. There's a balance.