system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The State should have no right to tell me what I can and can't put into my own body.

This is a post relating to drug prohibition. To me, it seems to be a glaring inconsistency in the law. The State is not there to protect me from myself. Law is there to ensure order between people and my personal right to consume something does not necessarily harm anyone else. Bodily autonamy is a key Tennant of law that comes up when discussing many other issues.

The argument I can see against this is one of public health/wellbeing. Recreational drugs can be dangerous when consumed in an unsafe manner or when bought in an unregulated market. My counter would be twofold: 

1. We allow many dangerous acts anyway (driving, drinking alcohol, certain sports etc.) It seems odd to make this distinction.

2. If public health is your concern then surely policy should be guided by public health experts. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that prohibition makes recreational drug taking less safe and does not reduce the prevalence of it. The way to make it safer is to educate and to regulate. 

I am not necessarily against the regulation of the drug market and the regulation of the sale of drugs I just think that fundamentally the State has no business telling me, on threat of imprisonment,what I can put in my body. I also believe that it leads to the opposite of what that policies are supposedly aiming for.

My view could be changed if someone could provide evidence that prohibition reduces harm to both individuals and society or if someone could provide a sound moral and logical argument for why the State has the right to govern my body in this way.

 Genuinely interested to hear counter arguments as I live in a bit of a bubble where this opinion is prevalent and I therefore haven't heard a single credible counter argument.

EDIT: A lot of people are using the argument that drugs cause people to harm other people. If someone commits a crime they should be arrested. If someone does not commit a crime, they should not be. Harming other people is already illegal and the prohibition of drugs does not need to be part of that.
gpt
Let's say that there's a substance that when consumed has a 50% chance of making you violent, to the extent of being a danger to others. Maybe in theory it would be more correct to simply punish those who commit crimes, but there is immense practicality in outlawing the use of said substance. Would you really consider it wrong?  


Of course, no actual drug functions this way, but if you concede the point about the hypothetical drug, the discussion moves away from theoretical principles, and into the concretes of the effects of various drugs.