>Comparing taking someone's life or, less importantly, their property to getting high shows a terrible lack distinction
But that's not what I'm doing.
>Don't forget, societies have become better places by breaking unjust laws.
Sure that's true, but laws designed with the intention people from injecting potentially harmful substances into their bodies would hardly qualify as those "terribly unjust laws that must be opposed."
If they were making all people of a certain race wear symbols or forcing them into concentration camps, then you have unjust laws worthy of being opposed. That is not on the same level as laws that ban certain substances because research have shown them to have great potential to harm physical and mental health.
If you think that throwing drug addicts into prisons rather than rehabilitation centers is harmful (as your comment seems to suggest) you may have a point. However, that is an argument for prison and sentencing reform not an argument for legalization.
> laws designed with the intention people from injecting potentially harmful substances into their bodies would hardly qualify as those "terribly unjust laws that must be opposed."
They are. Once again, they violate the basic principle of bodily autonomy - you are the sole owner of your own body, and you have the right to do whatever you want with it, so long as such activities are not inevitably harmful to others. By claiming that you have the right to limit the substances that people choose to use for recreational purposes, you implicitly assert that you have the right to control their bodies without their consent.
> If you think that throwing drug addicts into prisons rather than rehabilitation centers is harmful (as your comment seems to suggest) you may have a point. However, that is an argument for prison and sentencing reform not an argument for legalization.
Throwing "drug addicts" (which is itself very fuzzily defined, and the law seems to be treating all users as addicts by default, even though with e.g. marijuana the vast majority of users are not addicted to it) into rehabilitation centers instead of prisons is less harmful - but it's still harmful, since it still limits their freedom. The only reasonable argument in favor of this is "lesser evil", i.e. if if doing so prevents a greater non-consensual harm from happening - but that is not the case.
Prohibition on drug use is fundamentally about restricting people's voluntary choices with respect to their own bodies, and is not any different from laws regulating sexual mores (from anti-miscegenation laws and sodomy laws to sex toy bans).
It also has the very unfortunate side effect of criminalizing those for whom drug use may no longer be consensual, but who cannot seek help for it because doing so would be admitting to a crime. It doesn't matter if you do a sentencing reform - so long as use remains illegal, by definition, admitting to it remains some kind of risk (if not risk of imprisonment, then financial risk of a fine, or reputational risk of getting arrested and having a record of that etc). The only way to stop further victimization of victims of drug abuse is to fully decriminalize use.
But that's not what I'm doing.
>Don't forget, societies have become better places by breaking unjust laws.
Sure that's true, but laws designed with the intention people from injecting potentially harmful substances into their bodies would hardly qualify as those "terribly unjust laws that must be opposed."
If they were making all people of a certain race wear symbols or forcing them into concentration camps, then you have unjust laws worthy of being opposed. That is not on the same level as laws that ban certain substances because research have shown them to have great potential to harm physical and mental health.
If you think that throwing drug addicts into prisons rather than rehabilitation centers is harmful (as your comment seems to suggest) you may have a point. However, that is an argument for prison and sentencing reform not an argument for legalization.