I get annoyed at cigarette smoking, let alone cannabis, but at the same time Cocaine and especially Heroin are clearly in entirely different worlds in terms of risk and addiction.

Ultimately anyone knocking back 'a few drinks' (most of us then) has little to say about soft drugs, because they themselves are effectively taking them. And one more associated with violence than most.

As you view government laws on freedom of speech to be an attack on your freedoms (I prefer the American model so to an extent you have a point), I'm not sure that you should be so eager to default to what they think is correct or not relating to what a person takes into their own body (unless it's clearly 'very dangerous'). It's interesting to see what amounts to a moral argument posed. If breaking the law is simply wrong on account of the government sweepingly stating so (rather than it being selectively imposed to substances 'clearly' more harmful than all legal alternatives) then a moral argument can't really be pick and choose based any our own interests.

Same argument as above really. Though I'm against 'hate speech' laws outside of harassment, by your logic due to its illegality and consequently less acceptable nature it's fair to say that by default individuals who casually and recreationally engage in it are more likely to be drawn towards characters and situations on the range from undesirables to extreme (equivalent of a gateway to hard drugs) and less concerned with staying within the law. And a step from that would be, is it then better for these laws not to be in place as result? Does any perceived benefit of them outweigh the negatives? The same argument can be made with regard to criminalising most soft drugs in my view.

True. I'm certainly not a drug guy, and aside from a handful of times a year when I 'let loose' I'm not much of a drinker either. It's important to stay healthy as if people push things too far with drink or drugs, before they know it the damage is done.

I'd agree with some of this.

The main purpose behind my response was on the 'harmless' point and even there I don't believe you entirely meant what that suggested.

For me the drugs' issue and question is certainly one with of an amount of confliction. Your points reflected that...The libertarian angle of 'I should choose what I want to put in my body' is a strong one. Then again one the other hand there are societal messages and affects to consider here also.

So when it comes to soft drugs, the question is how do we do least harm while respecting personal choice. I admit...I'm conflicted on the question.

When it comes to freedom of speech and the charge of possible double standards I think we have to acknowledge that while we both advocate for speech freedoms to be protected, we also acknowledge that there have always been restrictions.....death threats or shouting 'fire' in a public place to encourage a stampede, for example. So really what we support is that freedom of speech isn't restricted further than the US model......which explains why we have some issues with recent legal restrictions here in the UK...with still more planned in the works.

What I'm against is the 'sitting on the fence' position, which represents the governmental approach of the last decades.

I'd admit that I would be quite happy to try the Peter Hitchens approach, which is that drug enforcement has never really been tried.....But my confliction also says that I'd not be completely against total or near total drug decriminalisation as it's a more adult and realistic approach in many ways... and while expensive allows for treatment...then again, it's also allowing for expanded use.

What does least harm? What are the long term affects of both in terms of the society...mind you, that's something on which conservatives and social liberals might actually differ.

I had a childhood friend who died from alcoholic abuse and the reality is that the state took tax from the poison that killed him. So should we expand that? Should the state ever make a profit from the tragedy of an individual's overdose drug or alcohol? (when also they might never have become a user without decriminalization)

I note that I've wandered into talking about hard drugs there which wasn't really the focus on this drug discussion.....though I suppose that point could be redirected to increasing mental illness in the already vulnerable.

I admit, it's a topic that, when it's discussed in depth, I'm slightly more humble on.

Yes I'm go with saying that I'm well aligned with the libertarian angle. At the same time I do appreciate that while demonising drink or drugs totally is overkill (or can bring about its own damages in terms of people taking unknown or unregulated substances instead), there are clearly certain highly addictive substances like heroin that it's difficult to make a case for there being an 'upside' as such. Similar to your ('fire') speech argument where there are certain occasions in which is either no reasonable excuse for something to be said, or it is in and of itself disruptive or dangerous in the context it's delivered.

It's a good point regarding your friend. I've often felt the same way about cigarettes, that it's a pretty strange contract to be making with the government. I suppose the opposite direction though is likely making the same contract with someone more dodgy and with less idea of what you're consuming. To an extent it's hard to save people from themselves where there is addiction present, other than getting to the core of why they are troubled, what their problems are an attempting to help them through them.

Most I think adhere to a 'moderation' approach, so even with problems caused by alcohol it's a minority and it comes down to whether we have the right to intrude on the lives of people who can perfectly well handle their drink. Society I will admit has a strange attitude to drunks though, almost viewing being totally wasted as comical, and i've rarely seen those endlessly propping up the bar have trouble getting served. I can well imagine that once you're on that slippery slope, whether behind closed doors or in a boozer, how there could be a descent into it that is hard to come back from.