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Friday,
April 23, 2004 |
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People
have right to consume as they wish
Brian
Chatman is a sophomore news-editorial journalism major
from Fort Worth.
Obesity
is the biggest killer in America. In response, schools
are now banning the sale of “junk food” and
providing balanced meals. What about the rest of the country?
Why don’t we ban the possession and consumption of
“junk food” in the United States? Of course,
what is “junk food”? Sure fudge and cake fit
the description but what about chicken? Almost all food
can be bad for you when your diet is unbalanced. Where
do we draw the line? If we decide and ban the sale of
“junk food,” how do we stop Granny in her kitchen
from making “gateway” sweets? One day you eat
Granny’s chocolate chip cookies and the next thing
you know it’s her chocolate éclairs. The only
way to solve this problem is to build more prisons, up
police funding for a special task force and arrest everyone
that qualifies as obese.
I think we can all agree this is going overboard. The
costs would be astronomical and it would abridge our perceived
right to choose what we consume. Harmful or not, our right
to choose what goes into our bodies is more important
than stopping people from eating “bad” foods
for legitimate or recreational purposes. All we can do
is educate and inform the public, then leave them to make
their own decisions.
So if we have a right to decide what we take into our
bodies, why do drug laws exist? There are “good”
drugs and “bad” drugs. All drugs are potentially
dangerous regardless of their legal status, yet we spend
billions on control of a select few and still can’t
solve the problem. Thousands of users are in prisons,
but others are still free. Even if we could stop the sale
of drugs, what about Granny and her pot greenhouse/meth-lab?
It is hard to take drug laws seriously when a story about
the latest bust is followed by yet another commercial
saying “drink beer and women will find you irresistible.”
The line between what is a “good” or “bad”
drug is blurred when tobacco is the second leading cause
of death and is still legal while marijuana is not.
The only way to justify drug laws would be if violent
crime occurred every time someone took them. Five college
students getting stoned and searching for Jerry Garcia’s
soul in a lava lamp is not a danger to the public. I suggest
we make more stringent penalties for public intoxication
and driving while intoxicated, then eliminate drug laws.
We should then tax these drugs heavily along with increases
on cigarette and alcohol taxes, then use that and what
we save from eliminating drug enforcement programs, to
fund better drug education and rehabilitation programs.
Before everyone has the collective reaction of “Drugs
are evil and liberals just want to everyone to do drugs,”
remember that I am not saying drugs are good. I personally
don’t even understand why someone would drink, let
alone do any other drug. What I want is a respect for
an individual’s right to choose what they do with
their bodies and punish them only when they harm others.
Drug enforcement takes police manpower away from more
serious crimes. People are going to do “bad”
things, whether it’s eating cookies with a green
elf on the package, or dropping acid then chasing that
little green elf around their kitchen. All we can, and
should do is educate the people and leave them to decide
what is right on their own. |
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