On the eve of a major conference on drug problems in the Western Hemisphere, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that jailing people for personal drug use constitutes a human rights violation and called for abolishing criminal penalties.Read the rest here.
“To deter harmful drug use, governments should rely instead on non-penal regulatory and public health policies,” the organization said in a statement released at a news conference in Guatemala, where the annual general assembly of the Organization of American States this week will focus on the drug policies of member governments. “Subjecting people to criminal sanctions for the personal use of drugs, or for possession of drugs for personal use, infringes on their autonomy and right to privacy.”
Prohibition...
Unbelievably stupid? Yes.
Human Rights violation? Not even close. These people are trivializing a very weighty legal concept.
I've started to make the same distinction, which has resulted in my rejecting libertarianism in general.
ReplyDeleteLibertarianism tends to conflate "it's imprudent for the government to prohibit this" with "I have a RIGHT to do this" It's part of the bigger problem of reducing freedom to the absence of government interference.
There's no "right" to smoke crack, commit suicide, or whoremonger, but the government may not be in the best position to regulate those activities.