Go drugs!

Gary Becker thinks we should legalize and tax drugs. Look at how this approach has decimated alcohol and tobacco usage, for example.

And the joys to be had from drugs! As the Moroccan saying goes,"A pipe of khif before breakfast is worth a hundred camels in the courtyard." Though I think the Devils' Dictionary needs updating: we need slogans like, "A six-pack of wife-beater in the morning is worth a hundred business calls", "Sixty a day is worth death before sixty", "Dropping a tab is worth the risk of grinning at the backs of your hands for the rest of your life."

So what's it to be, Falstaff or the pain-in-the-mule Puritans?

I think it's to do with work. In the old days, the ordinary person couldn't afford (financially or otherwise) to be almost constantly intoxicated; now, most of us are richer than Roman Emperors: central heating, carpets, hot water, ice cream, multimedia entertainment 24/7, no starvation if you don't work. Once, the Tree of Idleness was for the few surviving old men, who were past it; now, while we still have The Energy of Slaves (ie. machines and fossil fuels) to do the hard stuff for us, we don't know what to do with ourselves.

Freedom makes you fall apart.