34856893457934

American drug laws. “Take your seats, please,” the professor managing the discussion croaked to the
audience. “We’re about to begin.” Ross, in rare form with his tucked-in shirt, sat down at a desk next
to two other College Libertarians. There were some brief introductions from the professor, and then
the room fell quiet.
“It is not the government’s right to tell the people what they can and cannot put in their bodies,”
Ross began, going on to explain that drugs—all drugs—should be legalized, as it would make society
safer and people have a right to do what they want with their bodies.
There were only about forty people in the audience at the debate, and most were in attendance
only because it earned them extra credit from their poli-sci professor. But Ross took the discussion as
earnestly as if he were about to step in front of the U.S. Congress.
The College Republican responded to his arguments: “How can you legalize something that kills
tens of thousands of people a year?” The College Democrat agreed.
Ross calmly countered, “So do you think we should outlaw Big Macs from McDonald’s too,
because people gain weight and have heart attacks and die as a result of them?”
As was always the case with the drug debate, Ross’s opponents quickly grew flustered. They
tried throwing arguments back at him, but there was nothing they could say that Ross didn’t have a
retort for.
“And should we outlaw cars because people get into car accidents and die?” Ross pressed his
opposition. He offered arguments defending people who smoked pot, and even those who took heroin
in the privacy of their own homes, noting that they were no different from someone who has a glass of
wine after work to relax.
As for the violence around drug sales, he argued that this savagery existed only because the
government imposed such harsh and evil laws to try to deter the sale of drugs, and dealers had to
employ nefarious means to protect themselves in the wars that erupted on the streets. “There are no
gang wars over the sale of alcohol or Big Macs, because those are legal,” he continued. And on top of
it all, he reasoned, if drugs were legalized, then they would eventually be sold in regulated form. Bad
drugs, cut with rat poison or talcum powder, would disappear from the marketplace.
“It’s someone’s body and it belongs to them,” Ross said as he looked out at the audience. “And
the government has no right to tell them what they can and cannot do with it.”
Ross knew in his heart that his arguments were sound and that he had thought through every
aspect of the war on drugs. What wasn’t clear to him still, and what he kept asking himself in the
hours between school, his extracurricular activities, and his girlfriend, was what he could do with
those passionate beliefs to help change what he saw as the harmful and tyrannical drug laws in
America.