Sort of way off topic

So:
Back in elementary school I went through D.A.R.E. and got told over and over how drugs are bad and scary and they'll ruin your life and you should take the drugs the doctor gives you because he's just trying to help but you can't take drugs your friends give you because they're already agents of satan and if you do what your friends do then you'll end up a crazy hobo and probably die in a gutter somewhere cold and alone because nobody loves someone who takes drugs that the doctor didn't instruct them to take.

One of the core messages of the anti-drug movement is that winners don't do drugs. They'd have some kid involved in extreme sports or an olympian or a movie star or a scientist come on and say, 'I do great things, and I don't do drugs, because if I did, I couldn't do great things. Be like me, Don't do drugs! Or you'll FAIL!' and it seemed plausible enough.

But every day that message looks more and more insane. First comes the long list of artists and authors and politicians and athletes and philosophers and whoever else that were alcoholics. There are bunches of them, just droves. It's not everybody, sure, but it's damned near impossible to find anybody that doesn't at least like a beer every now and then, or a glass of wine with dinner or whatever. And you know, alcohol: it's a drug. It's legal, sure, so it's different than a lot of drugs, and it causes various problems (we all know an alchie or two, and we know the drinking and driving statistics), but mostly, it's a drug just like any other drug. It is a chemical substance diluted into water and then flavored up in one way or another. It is socially acceptable in some situations and not in others. But first and foremost it is a drug among drugs.

And so is caffeine. And so is nicotine. And so is advil, though people get pretty suspicious pretty quick if you take advil for fun. And goodness gracious you could write a damned encyclopedia of all of the various successful folks and what chemicals they used to regulate themselves and stimulate themselves and relax or excite or whatever else they were doing. And that's even if you just stick to the legal ones.

But now, on the eve of our third (at least that I know about) druggie president in a row (I know Jimmy Carter smoked pot on the roof with Willy Nelson, but I don't know about Regan or Bush 1) and the winningest ever olympic swimmer turning out to be a pot head, not to mention the supposed scandal that some gawdaful number of professional baseball players [*shock!*] failed drug tests over the years, and the continual rotation of various celebrities in and out of rehab for whatever the hell they're doing, and I'm beginning to feel like maybe, just maybe, those D.A.R.E. folks didn't know for a second what the hell they were talking about.

But they've done their damage and we've got our prohibition and we all treat each other like children that can't control themselves and we won't take an ounce of responsibility for anything we do because if I'm not choosing the chemicals that go into me (I'M ADDICTED! SOCIETY MADE ME! I WANTED TO BE COOOOL) then I can always blame them for whatever shit I've gotten myself into and I won't have to actually face up to the fact that maybe I'm just another asshole that doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

In the meantime I'm going to fear my fellow citizens because who knows what sort of shit they've been putting in their mouths and their noses and their veins and wherever else. They're all almost certainly crazed out of their mind either by the drugs they're on or by their uncontrollable need for more drugs. And if I get between them and their substance there's no telling what they might do.

gah. This stuff has bothered me since highschool, long before I got a taste of anything that altered states in any way that was un-kosher and it only bothers me more now that I know that addiction is conquerable and intoxication can be loads of fun. I'm sick of repression. In all its various forms. I don't think that letting people be grownups wil mean the end of society. Lets punish people when they do things that are actually harmful to themselves or others, rather than punishing them for doing things that we think might lead some of them to maybe do something bad to somebody someday. Because if grownups can't take care of themselves, there arn't any super-humans to do it for them. And pretending to be a super human is not cool. You get to decide what's good for you. And you are allowed to make mistakes. It's cool. You can change. You can experiment. Not everything you do has to become a permanent part of who you are. For real.

I'm not even going to go into all of the problems that having a police state and creating black markets and empowering criminals can cause. I think it should all be clear enough if we take a moment to think about it:
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
If sodomy is outlawed, only outlaws will have sodomy.
If birth control is outlawed, only outlaws will have birth control.
If drugs are outlawed, only outlaws will have drugs.
If X is outlawed, people will find a way to have it.
When someone commits a crime (a real crime, like hurting someone, or stealing a car, or arson) we can find them and let them know in one way or another that what they did was wrong and hurt people.
But when what a person is or does is a crime, loving the sinner is not compatible with hating the sin. When you think that black people are black because Cain killed Abel (which some people do, I'm not just making that up), it causes certain sorts of stress with inter-racial relations. When people are evil for eating some sort of food or doing some sort of dance or whatever, telling them that they can't do that and that they need to stop or we're putting them in a little box, it just doesn't say I Love You like... I don't know, NOT hating them does.

I feel like the propaganda machine (see also: the media) is kind of finally starting to come around to this crazy liberal view of freedom as actually involving some freedoms, and maybe people will warm up to the idea, but I just feel like there never was a war to be fought. Humans: they like stuff. Sometimes too much. But usually they'll figure that out. Especially if you talk to them and treat them like Humans and let them know that, hey, maybe you like that thing too much. People have gotta be allowed to make a mistake here and there without fear of punishment for it. Mistakes punish people enough by being mistakes. We don't need to add injury to insult. I've learned you can only learn the hard way. But that doesn't mean we need to keep people from learning.