Mothers Protest Inhumane Treatment of Sons in Supermax Prison

[Warren DeMontague]

11. I distinguish between harming/endangering others and ones self, however.

And I think one legitimate function of prison is to separate the violent from the rest of us.

But when we're talking about things like drug use, the left-libertarian in me says peoples' bodies need to belong to them, period. Drive under the influence, neglect your kids, rob someone, then those are crimes and prosecute as such. But the idea that the government has the right to tell a consenting adult how to use his or her own body, bloodstream, nervous system... I have a problem with it, I find it disturbing that more people don't at least find the concept antithetical to real notions of liberty, and worst of all I think the whole mess is directly derived from the notion, popularized by Western monotheism, that we don't belong to ourselves, but rather to "God".

That said, I also have trouble envisioning meth being sold at the 7-11.