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Originally Posted by panerd
1) He thinks it should be up to the states (and in a perfect world municipalities but we will start with states) and not the federal government to determine what they want to be legal and illegal. So for example in California when the citizens vote for something they shouldn't be overruled by the Feds. He has said repeatedly that there probably isn't a state that would have legal heroin but many might have legal marijuana and legal cancer drugs which brings us to...
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It's a cute political stance, but it doesn't work in reality. Maybe in the 1800's when going from one state to another required days of travel. When moving was a life changing event. But nowadays, borders hardly matter. Sure States should have their own laws and such on local issues, but there are too many things that can't be done at the state level. We can't have 50 FAAs, 50 FDAs, 50 CDCs, and so on. It's just unreasonable to do things this way when doing them on a federal level is much more efficient.
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Originally Posted by panerd
2) He thinks that pharmaceutical industry (and the FDA) shouldn't have say over which drugs one can take for illnesses and which ones we can't.
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Paul's stance on the FDA is just stupid. For a guy who actually is a doctor, it's a tad embarrassing. He falls for the "genetically enhanced foods are bad" or "pesticides will kill us all" rhetoric that has almost no scientific backing. He pushes herbal and alternative medicines that again have little to no scientific support.
I'm sure there are things the FDA can do better. But I also realize that for all the food we consume, for all the drugs we take, we don't have a lot of problems. We aren't dropping dead all the time from bad foods, from dangerous drugs, etc. When you go to the store and pick up food, you feel pretty safe about eating it. When you are prescribed a drug, you have a good feeling that it's gone through years of testing before being put in your body. I'm sorry, but I sort of like living in a country like that.
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Originally Posted by panerd
3) He thinks the war on drugs is a colossal failure and just an expansion of a massive police state. Outside of the Baptists and a few others most people see this very clearly with the failed prohibition of alcohol.
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I agree with this. It's a rather large waste of money. I'm not a fan of heroin being sold legally or anything, but do find it quite silly that we care if people are smoking joints in their own home. I'm for people doing whatever they want with their bodies. But I do draw the line at drugs that cause someone to not be able to control themselves and become a danger to society.