Morality Above Common Sense

A frequent argument I hear against the legalization of drugs is that "we don't want to endorse that kind of behaviour." This objection to legalization is often raised when all the practical and pragmatic objections have been debunked. You may be able to convince a moralist that drug legalization would allow drugs to be regulated, reducing the money that criminals get from it, and that treating drug addiction like a health problem would reduce drug addiction and save the tax-payers' money by keeping people out of prison who don't need to be there, but they'll still object to it because, "we don't want to endorse drug use, because it is immoral."

For these kinds of moralists, vague principals are more important than a society's actual welfare. They may even know that the War on Drugs is expensive, does little to deter people, bolsters the pockets of criminals and results in more severely drug addicted people, but they don't care. They would rather exacerbate the problems drugs cause than allow people to use them without punishment. Thus is the idiocy of moralism.