I strongly agree on your main point, although personally I feel it is also on issue of personal liberties.
Also, some studies suggest that the current arbitrary blanket ban has hindered possibly useful medical research related to some of the currently prohibited substances.
The whole theory of personal liberties collapses once you consider sufficiently powerful technology.
If there was a drug that gave the user unimaginable euphoria or was guaranteed to kill them with a 50/50 chance should we do everything in our power to stop that? Especially for the young and impressionable? Even as someone who thinks heroin should be legal that gives me pause.
Should knifes for personal use be legal to purchase? How about guns? How about artillery? Tanks? Nuclear weapons?
I don't know, but thinking about these issues in absolutes like "personal liberties" tends to bring you some bad places, just like any other absolute. I think it's more useful to think about the practical implications of our actions given existing data, which shows the current drug war clearly isn't working, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever have any sort of ban on substances purely intended for personal use for public health reasons.
We are not talking about all personal liberties. Lets stick to the topic of regulation of Psychoactive substances. You don't face problems of abuse and dependence on, say, guns or Tanks.
> If there was a drug that gave the user unimaginable euphoria or was guaranteed to kill them with a 50/50 chance should we do everything in our power to stop that? Especially for the young and impressionable?
We do have a system in place for controlling access to substances like Alcohol and Tobacco to minors.
Also, some studies suggest that the current arbitrary blanket ban has hindered possibly useful medical research related to some of the currently prohibited substances.