Like I said, as a child and into high school, I supported drug laws. I am not sure why, because I have been open-minded about most social issues and I have considered myself a liberal, at least moderate, all my life. But one of the things that made me question my own beliefs was the arrest of the founder of the DeLorean Motor Company John DeLorean in 1982. DeLorean was arrested by the federal government in 1982 and charged with trafficking cocaine following a videotaped sting at a Los Angeles hotel that year. They placed a huge suit case full of cocaine in front of him and opened it. And when DeLorean saw it he famously said "it's as good as gold". They had more than enough evidence to send him away for a long time. But the jury acquitted him when he said he found God. But that was the first step I think in my rethinking my own views. If cocaine, and all illegal drugs, are so evil, then why does the government sell it? Why do they even own it? And the government would never do something like an undercover murder or rape sting. They only do an undercover sting when it's some silly vice or victimless crime. Plus as I later read in the Merck manual (which is a medical manual by doctors for doctors, obviously written by some old, retired doctor who talks like Wilford Brimley) the effects of things like drug tests and laws regarding marijuana do far more harm than the drug itself would ever do. If it even does harm from a medical standpoint, he points out. Laws regarding drugs are ridiculous and pointless. If drugs do harm, invest money in treatment. Not in punishment and in stigmatizing the average, ordinary people who use them.
