Legislation to protect juveniles

[brandon]

How many of you support local or state legislation to protect persons under the age of 18? For example, laws banning the sale of tobacco to minors, or laws that would ban the sale of drugs to minors(after we end prohibition)? I'm not sure what I think.

I don't think a 15 year old is old enough to always make responsible decisions. Yet a 15 year old is often old enough that they no longer listen to their parents. Should the state legislate to protect them? What about if the legislation if not very effective, is it still worthwhile to try? And how far should it go?

[danberkeley]

let parents decide! one-size-fits-all "solutions" dont work.

[evilfunnystuff]

its a state issue in my opinion

but i feel that there should be an age limit of 18 and no higher for any drugs

[Kalifornia]

Its a state issue, and unfortunately, though children mature at different rates, since there is no way to objectively measure maturity, there must be a rule of law which everyone can rely on that says 'this person is responsible for their actions'. Age is as good an arbitrary delineator as anything.

Yes, Im all for keeping kids out of the market, and under the wings of their parents. As I explained above, the date of majority is open for debate, as far as I am concerned, but our current system doesnt seem ridiculous, except perhaps to 17 year olds.

[BillyDkid]

It is the parents responsibility, plain and simple. It is the father and mother's responsibilty to raise and teach their kids and not the state's. We have been indoctrinated with the notion that without state controls and regulations people - young and old - will suddenly turn into raving lunatics and abuse themselves to death. You would think, if you believed what you are told, that before the age of government regulation of virtually everything, people were running wild in the streets and turning into raging drug addict and alcoholics and self abusers of every sort. It is absurd. In fact, sale of cigarettes and alcohol were illegal for people under 18, yet, somehow, me and my friends were regular smokers and drinkers from the time we were 14 or 15. Nobody says to themselves, "Jeeze, regulations doesn't work." No, they say, "Oh my, we need more regulation." That is the trouble with this country. When something obviously doesn't work and may even be very detrimental to the country as with the "War on Drugs" - nobody decides it's a bad idea. They decide we need more of it and to do it even harder. Your children are not the government's children and they are your responsibility and not the governments. We assign responsibility for everything to the government and then wonder why people are irresponsible. It boogles the mind.

[Kraig]

Not to mention the millions and billions we have spent on the war on drugs with no results other than a bunch of people being in prision for victimless crimes. Think of the thousands and thousands of young people in this country who now have a crimial record and their lives ruined thanks to a pot obsession that started in high school. We are breeding criminals with the war on drugs. I don't think the older people in this country quite appreciate the heavy hand of government quite like the young people do today. They have become quite used to cops being around schools and enforcing the rules, I don't think it's healthy to have government officials ruling over children at such a young age. The law enforcement should be focuesed on the real crimes with real victims, rape, murder, theft, etc. It pisses me off to no end that whenever my apartment gets broken into a cop will be here for 5 minutes and leave, doing nothing. But my own habits of taking natural PLANT and smoking it in the privacy of my own home, with no wish to impress this habit on anyone, puts me at more risk than the guy who robbed me. Or how about my friend who had his car stolen and wrecked, only to have the guy released because the local jail was too full. He goes to the impound to get his stuff out of the car (stereo, etc.) only to find out his only options are to tow it away or take nothing. Because if he takes the stereo and leaves the car, they will have to sell it for a little less money, and make less off of his shitty situation. Protect and serve my fucking ass. Three months after that happened he was stopped at night for a bad light, foolishly let a bully cop search his car, and is now facing prison time. You could probably go on forever with these types of stories.

Personally I don't think all drugs should be legalized, some of the harder ones are simply poison and I can find no logical use for them. Even if they were to remain illegal though, I don't think cops should be actively hunting the users down like dogs, it's a waste of money and it's not freedom. If a local drug dealer/drug community creates a real problem and more enforcement is needed, I think it should be handled at the local level according to what the community wants. Of course that would require local governments to do some work and not sit around passing pointless laws to build parks and create tollways. Overall I think more local and individual based decisions are always going to be better for everyone, the federal DEA is horrible.

[AutoDas]

I don't see babies chugging Formula 401. Why should I ban a drug? I'm against prohibition of all kind.

[ryanmkeisling]

No. This teaches children at a very young age that:

a) the government has authority over your body and what you do with it.

b) the government is responsible for helping or forcing you to make good judgments according to its own legislated principles.

We need to teach the exact opposite. Things will never change if we continue to set this type of example for our children. Fear drives people to convoluted logic and drug hysteria is nothing but fear.

[nate895]

I believe that it is a state and local issue. I would be in favor of those measures, myself.

[BillyDkid]

Personally I don't think all drugs should be legalized, some of the harder ones are simply poison and I can find no logical use for them. Don't you see the problem with this? Making or keeping substances illegal does not keep people who want them from getting them and using them and it creates a criminal sub-culture and a black market and creates criminals out of people who are harming no one except, possibly, themselves. What is the logic of advocating something that does not help and causes more harm than leaving it alone? If people want to harm themselves there are a million ways people can do it that are perfectly legal. Certainly alcohol has the potential to be as or more harmful to the health of people as are any of the drugs that you might think should be illegal. Prohibition is prohibition and it just doesn't work. The government has no business telling people how they can treat their own bodies, but that is really irrelevant since government can't keep people from getting what they want without destroying liberty altogether. Suppose we suddenly decided that alcohol is to dangerous to be legal - well, we did that didn't we and you can see what became of it. You have to give people ownership and responsibility for their own lives if there is any hope at all for having freedom in any meaningful way.