SEX, DRUGS AND CONSENTING ADULTS with JOHN STOSSEL (continued)

ANNOUNCER Later in the program—gambling. Everybody’s doing it, even the
government. So why is it against the law? But next, try to tell this man
it’s a free country. What he did in his own home got him 93 years in jail.
And look what America’s neighbors are doing. When it comes to free choice,
maybe the grass is greener on their side of the border. “Sex, Drugs &
Consenting Adults” continues after this from our ABC stations. (Station Break)

ANNOUNCER “Sex, Drugs & Consenting Adults” continues. Here again from the
Statue of Liberty, John Stossel.

JOHN STOSSEL We talk about the past 20 years as a time of peace in America.
But, in fact, we’re at war. This war has been hugely destructive and has
lasted longer than the war in Vietnam. (VO) We spend almost $100 million a
day fighting this war. The military does much of the work in other
countries. (Explosions)

GROUP OF POLICE OFFICERS Get down! On the ground! Now!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) But most of the battles are fought here at home.

8TH POLICE OFFICER Search warrant! Search warrant!

9TH POLICE OFFICER Police officers!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) After all, this is a war against our own people.

1ST MAN ON GROUND What are you talking about?

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) I’m talking, of course, about the war on drugs. This is a
war worth fighting, isn’t it? We have to protect all the innocent people
who live in fear because their streets are so unsafe.

WOMAN ON STREET CORNER Oh, God, we ask you for the Holy Spirit.

PRIEST Some people selling drugs were shot to death right on this corner,
and our cross is a sign of the suffering that drugs cause.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) In this part of the Bronx, New York, they hold these
anti—drug vigils every month. Jesuit priest Joseph Kane has his ministry here.

FATHER JOSEPH KANE, JESUIT PRIEST Brothers and sisters, may the grace and
peace of our loving God ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) For 25 years, Father Kane’s lived in this neighborhood
amidst drug violence. But now he believes the laws against drugs do more
harm than the drugs themselves.

JOSEPH KANE Peace be with you. Thank you.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) First of all, they barely make a dent in the drug trade.

JOSEPH KANE I think what we have to realize is that interdiction is just
about impossible.

UNDERCOVER DRUG AGENT He’s going to sell to this big truck.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) The drug war doesn’t stop the flow of drugs, because
making drugs illegal makes smuggling more profitable. A hundred dollars
worth of Peruvian cocaine’s worth $2,000 on these streets. That keeps
sellers selling.

JOSEPH KANE The corner up above it is heroin. The corner above that would
be cocaine, and then down our block is smoke, you know, so ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) The worst effect of the drug war, he says, is the crime.
Kane says if drugs were legal, there’d be less violence here. (on camera)
You’ve got enough chaos in this neighborhood now. If it were legal, you
don’t think you’d have more?

JOSEPH KANE No. John, I hate to interrupt you. I think the violence in this
neighborhood is caused by it being illegal.

JOHN STOSSEL What, the violence isn’t caused by the drug?

JOSEPH KANE It’s caused by the cost of the drug. In a sense, when you make
that drug illegal, you have raised the price to such an extent that I’m
willing to kill you to get your street corner. See, I cannot deal with you
legally, so how can I take over this very lucrative market that you have?
The only way I can get you is with violence.

JOHN STOSSEL Now, that’s an odd idea—that it’s the drug war that causes the
crime. But think about it. Drug users rarely commit crimes just because
they’re high on their drug. But outlawing the drug causes crime two ways.
First, it puts the drug trade in the hands of outlaws. And second, by
making the drug scarce, it raises the price, and that makes drug users more
likely to steal. (VO) Nicotine is said to be almost as addictive as
cocaine. Yet no one’s knocking over 7—Elevens to get Marlboros.

JOSEPH KANE Would there be less violence with the repeal of our laws? There
would be.

TOM CONSTANTINE, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION People try to say it’s the
law that causes the problem. It’s the drug and the drug usage that causes
the problem.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Tom Constantine heads the DEA, America’s Drug Enforcement
Administration. He says we must fight the drug culture.

TOM CONSTANTINE I think we have a responsibility as a Democratic society to
protect ourselves from those types of detrimental situations.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER Bootlegging was ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Of course, when we tried to protect ourselves from the
alcohol culture, it was a disaster.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER For 13 years, the idiocy continued despite ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Prohibition gave rise to criminals like Al Capone.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER Gangsterism was a natural sequel, and battles for
exclusive territories erupted with a violence unparalleled in the history
of law enforcement.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) It’s what happens when you outlaw something that lots of
people want. Today’s gangs created by drug prohibition make Al Capone look
small.

TOM CONSTANTINE Their wealth for criminals and organized criminals exceeds
anything that we’ve ever seen, even when the Mafia was dominant in the
United States.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) But even if the law makes some criminals rich, he says,
we must fight the war to send a message to the children. Yet kids aren’t
getting the message.

TOM CONSTANTINE Our teenage population, we are finding that kids have lost
the message that drugs are bad for them. They don’t see us disapproving
strongly enough of drugs.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) So what’s the purpose of the war? You’ve got this
huge war. You’re locking up more and more people, and the kids still don’t
get it?

TOM CONSTANTINE The purpose of the war is to save those kids.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) It’s not clear that kids are being saved. I’m sure the
law deters some from trying drugs, but some teenagers are attracted to
what’s forbidden. And in poor neighborhoods, what may be the most perverse
effect of the law is teaching kids that real work—entry—level jobs—are for
suckers. Why work at McDonald’s when the coolest guys in the neighborhood,
the ones with the best clothes and the best cars, are the dealers? (on
camera) They got the most money?

1ST BOY The most money, the most power.

2ND BOY They have the loot. The cheese.

JOHN STOSSEL “The cheese?”

2ND BOY That’s what they call it.

3RD BOY They don’t buy cheap stuff like us. They buy expensive.

4TH BOY They got the money, power and respect.

JOHN STOSSEL So doesn’t it make you want to grow up to be a dealer?

ALL No, no, no. That’s bad money.

JOHN STOSSEL That’s bad money. (VO) Heroically, most of the kids will
resist the temptation. But that’s a lot to ask of a kid.

TOM CONSTANTINE That’s why society has to arrest and prosecute those
individuals that commit those crimes as a signal to all the rest of the
people that we care about the issue.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) So who’s the enemy in this war?

TOM CONSTANTINE The individuals who are selling drugs at great profit
involved in these monumental criminal enterprises. Certainly not those poor
people who become addicted to drugs. I don’t think they should be anybody’s
enemy. In fact, they should be somebody we look at with some compassion.

JOHN STOSSEL But we are locking them up.

TOM CONSTANTINE No, not really.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Then who’s filling the jails? Drug laws are why America
imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than most other countries.

PRISON GUARD Stand by the gate, right there.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Today, 400,000 Americans are in jail, not because they
did something to someone, but because they were caught with forbidden
chemicals. Here in Texas, Will Foster’s in jail because he grew marijuana
plants. He was convicted of intent to sell, and a jury sentenced him to 93
years.

WILL FOSTER, PRISONER In America, to have committed a crime, there used to
have to be a victim. I’ve never beat up anybody. I’ve never raped nobody. I
haven’t molested a child. I haven’t killed anybody. I worked. I paid my
taxes. I took care of my family.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Foster ran a computer business.

WILL FOSTER I made in excess of $100,000 a year annual income. Now, my wife
is struggling to make ends meet. And I’ve used all the money I had saved
just to fight this. For a victimless, nonviolent crime. Never hurt nobody.

PETER MCWILLIAMS Imagine what it’s costing us to do this. Imagine the
money. Imagine the agony of people whose lives are destroyed by a single
arrest for something like marijuana.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Peter McWilliams smokes marijuana. He probably won’t be
jailed for this because he lives in California, where there’s a medical
exception to the drug law. McWilliams has AIDS and says marijuana relieves
the nausea he gets from his medicine. But the medical exception isn’t much
protection. Recently, nine DEA agents ransacked his house looking for
evidence of marijuana growing.

PETER MCWILLIAMS They went through every paper in my house, and they just
sort of left it all over the place here. And I don’t know what they were
looking for or what was going on. I assume that they were looking for great
drug kingpin something—or—another. Isn’t that what the DEA’s all about, the
major traffickers?

DEA AGENTS The police! Go, go, go!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Actually, legal rules have gradually been loosened, so
narcotics squads can enter any drug suspect’s house even in the middle of
the night without knocking. Sometimes, it’s not the right house.

BOSTON TV REPORTER A Boston police SWAT team raided the wrong apartment
looking for drugs.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) After this raid, this minister died of a heart attack.

10TH POLICE OFFICER Police, open the door!

11TH POLICE OFFICER Open the door!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) And drug police now have the power to take your property
and, unless you know the legal tricks, sell it at an auction like this.
Even if you haven’t been found guilty.

AUCTIONEER $95.

WILL FOSTER If you rape somebody, they don’t come in, they don’t seize your
house. They don’t seize your bank account. They don’t seize your cars. They
don’t seize everything you own. In a drug offense, they do that first thing.

FORT WORTH POLICE OFFICER Police, down! Police, down!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Still, many in government want tougher laws.

REP NEWT GINGRICH, (R) GEORGIA We ought to say flatly, “You import a
commercial quantity of drugs in the United States for the purpose of
destroying our children, we will kill you.”

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) They do that in Saudi Arabia. Here, drug dealers are
beheaded in the town square. Would this solve our problem? (Church bells
ring) Some countries say the answer is more tolerance. In Italy, Spain and
Holland, use of small amounts of drugs is generally ignored. In Vancouver,
Canada, we stopped by the Cannabis Cafe.

MARK EMORY (PH), CANNABIS CAFE The Cannabis Cafe here has cannabis in all
the food, hemp oil and hemp seeds.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) People smoke marijuana in the restaurant, started by Mark
Emory.

MARK EMORY Where’d you get this pipe?

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) His mother and daughter tried out different pipes as a
gift for her 16th birthday. What do the police think about this?

SGT RUSS GRABB, ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE All things being equal,
marijuana is really not a big deal. It’s essentially viewed as a victimless
crime.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) America was once more tolerant of intoxicants, too. At
the turn of the century, Bayer aspirin had heroin in it. Some wine had coca
leaves. And nicotine’s always been legal.

WILL FOSTER In America, you can have the right to kill yourself with
cigarettes, have the right to kill yourself with alcohol. But you can’t
medicate yourself, or you can’t smoke a joint. You know, I mean, where is
your freedom of choice?

TOM CONSTANTINE There’s a difference between alcohol and cocaine. There’s a
difference between alcohol and marijuana. Everybody who tries that
substance—marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, hashish—does it for
one single purpose. They do it for the purpose of becoming high. I think
that’s wrong, and I think it’s dangerous.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) I hate to say this to the head of the DEA, but
when I have a glass of gin or vodka, I’m doing it to get a little buzz on.
That buzz is bad, should be illegal?

TOM CONSTANTINE Well, I think if you drink for that purpose, that’s not too
smart. I can’t tell what you to do with your own life.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) We do want him to tell airline pilots and bus drivers
they can’t get high on the job. That’s hardly victimless. But shouldn’t
people be allowed to harm themselves if that’s what they want to do? (on
camera) Should we outlaw smoking?

TOM CONSTANTINE When we look down the road, I would say 10, 15, 20 years
from now, in a gradual fashion, smoking will probably be outlawed in the
United States.

DREW CAREY Oh, my God. Send me to jail.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Better enjoy it while you can.

NADINE STROSSEN Everything can be abused. And if we’re going to say that
any freedom or any choice that can be abused should therefore be
eliminated, then I think we’re all going to have to live in a police state.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Large numbers of police recently appeared on Father
Kane’s block. They say they’re fighting drugs 24 hours a day.

JOSEPH KANE I think our country wants to make war. And we’re making war
against people who we really don’t care that much about to begin with. And
that’s why I am personally against it. We have taken people that I think
are precious and we’ve destroyed them.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) When we return, we look at what many people
consider the most basic freedom.

ANNOUNCER Stossel and Stossel, father and son making decisions about the
end of life.

JOHN STOSSEL Would you ever want to die?

ANNOUNCER The way we live, the way we die. Should the government have the
final say? “Sex, Drugs & Consenting Adults” continues after this.

(Commercial Break)

ANNOUNCER “Sex, Drugs & Consenting Adults” continues. Here again, John
Stossel.

JOHN STOSSEL Who owns your body? You or the state? I’d like to think that
once I’m an adult, my body belongs to me. So I’m allowed to eat as much as
I want to, dye my hair red, get a nose ring, whatever. It’s my body, isn’t
it? Well, actually, no.

12TH POLICE OFFICER Give me your hands! (Shouting) Give me your hands!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) As we’ve seen, you’re not free to put any intoxicant you
want into your body.

13TH POLICE OFFICER Head down!

2ND MAN ON GROUND I don’t have anything!

JOHN STOSSEL Or sell your body.

2ND PROSTITUTE So what’s going on, honey? Can you try to help a girl out?

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) You can’t bulk up using steroids. Some places, you’re not
allowed to get a tattoo. The purpose of these bans is to protect us, but
it’s not clear that forbidding things always does that.

JANET’S MOTHER One, two, three ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Consider Janet Cheadle. While she looks healthy, Janet
has a form of cancer that’s likely to kill her before she becomes an adult.
Her parents want to take her to this Texas clinic, run by Dr Stanislaw
Burzynski. He has a treatment that might help her. It’s now being studied
by the Food and Drug Administration. But only the FDA gets to decide who
can be treated, and the agency turned Janet down. They say it’s not safe if
people pursue medical treatments the government hasn’t sanctioned.

JANET CHEADLE, CANCER PATIENT Whee!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Janet’s father’s angry about that.

LYLE CHEADLE My daughter has a terrible disease called neuroblastoma
cancer. I know what the survival rates are, which is essentially zero, and
I’m trying to do something that may save my daughter’s life. We have
absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) But they won’t let you?

LYLE CHEADLE They won’t let me.

JOHN STOSSEL Janet, do you know what your father’s talking about? Can you
follow this? And your father wants to take you to this new doctor. You want
to go?

JANET CHEADLE Yeah.

PROTESTERS FDA go away! Let us live another day!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) When the government moved to put Burzynski in jail and
shut his clinic down two years ago, desperate patients and their families
went to Congress to protest.

MARIANNE KUNARI (PH) My son’s last hope for life ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Marianne Kunari pleaded for her son, Dustin.

MARIANNE KUNARI Without this treatment, my son will die.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) After this testimony, her son was allowed to continue his
treatment. He’s now doing well.

DOCTOR Looks good.

JANET CHEADLE Barney.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) That’s what Lyle Cheadle hopes for Janet—if the FDA would
just let go. (on camera) “We’re the government. We’re here, we’re just
protecting you.”

LYLE CHEADLE I’m going to tell you, I don’t need your protection, and you
need to get out of my face. They’re not protecting my daughter. What
they’re doing is tantamount to murder.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) After this interview, the FDA said Janet will be allowed
the treatment. But why did her parents have to beg? Why should thousands of
others have to leave the country to try to save their lives? Which brings
us to the biggest issue. If it’s my body, do I have the right to end my
life? Can I ask a doctor to help? Here in Olympia, Washington, Dale
Gilsdorf is dying. He has lung and brain cancer.

DALE GILSFORD, CANCER PATIENT Oh, this is our ski trip.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Divorced, he spends lots of time with his two daughters,
Renee and Nicole. He’s had a good life. He worked as a psychotherapist and
climbed mountains. Now his wish is to die with dignity, at a time he
chooses, with his daughters at his bedside.

DALE GILSFORD I don’t want my children to see me as this skeleton who
vomits, doesn’t know his full name, doesn’t know them.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) Your mother died that way?

DALE GILSFORD My mother died that way. That’s a very undignified way to
live your last years.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Dale would like a doctor to help him control the manner
of his death. But here, and in most states, that’s illegal.

DALE GILSFORD In this most important part of my life, which is my death,
I’m alone. I don’t even have trained people to help me. That’s not right.

POLLSTER We’re calling with Oregon’s ballot measure 16 campaign.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) If Dale lived in Oregon, however, he’d have another choice.

PETER JENNINGS Voters in that state passed a controversial ballot
initiative this week that allows doctors to help terminally ill patients
who want to commit suicide.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Family physician Dr Peter Goodwin helped draft the Oregon
law.

DR PETER GOODWIN Only in Oregon have we publicly acknowledged what people
around this country believe, and that is that aiding dying is appropriate
for some few terminally ill patients who want this, want it desperately.

”DEATH WITH DIGNITY” ADVOCATE State voters, we need your signature ...

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Often, it’s older people who feel most strongly about
having control at the end of their lives. (on camera) How old are you now?
(VO) My father’s 92. (on camera) What if you got cancer or some disease,
and you were in pain?

OTTO STOSSEL Yes.

JOHN STOSSEL Would you want a doctor—would you ever want to die?

OTTO STOSSEL I think I should have the privilege to demand it of my doctor
to do something of the sort.

JOHN STOSSEL You should have the right to demand that he kill you?

OTTO STOSSEL That’s right. I should have the right to demand it.

JOHN STOSSEL The law says no. The law says the doctor may not.

OTTO STOSSEL I think it still should be my decision what I want to do with
my life—not anybody else’s, even if it’s you.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) I can’t argue with that. But the law says no, and should
say no, says lawyer Wesley Smith, a leader in the anti—euthanasia movement.
(on camera) Isn’t it my choice? It’s my life.

WESLEY J. SMITH, ATTORNEY The law is not about “I, I, me, me.” When we make
public policy, it is about “us, us, we, we.” There are certain individual
conducts that we have a right to stop, and I think having doctors help kill
people is one of those.

JOHN STOSSEL I’m scared about the end of my life. What if I’m in terrible
pain? I want to be able to end that pain.

WESLEY J. SMITH We’re all scared about the end of our lives, and what we
need to have is to be ensured that our pain can be ended. But killing isn’t
ending pain. Killing is killing.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Smith worries that doctors or patients’ families might
want to kill off dying or elderly people just to cut medical costs, or that
people might feel they have a duty to die to relieve the burden on their
family.

WESLEY J. SMITH If we’re going to be a loving and compassionate society, I
think if we just say, “Oh, well, it’s your body. If you want to die, go
ahead,” you’re abandoning people.

DR PETER GOODWIN Absolutely untrue. What we’re doing is staying with the
patients’ perception, listening to the patient, and then acceding to a
desperate plea from a dying patient at the very end of life. It’s not
abandonment. It’s compassionate care.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Dale Gilsdorf approached several doctors about getting
that care, but they said no.

DALE GILSDORF And they just shut the conversation off. I couldn’t even talk
about it because they’re frightened.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) So you’ve had to trick doctors into giving you the
pills.

DALE GILSDORF Exactly. Exactly. You’re hiding from your physician. You’re
being dishonest with your physician.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Dale lied to his doctors, told them he couldn’t sleep,
and they prescribed sleeping pills. But fearing that that wouldn’t be
enough drugs, Dale then found an illegal dealer in barbiturates. He drove
to this nearby town where he secretly bought these pills.

DALE GILSDORF I’m not a person that does things that are illegal, and I’m
being forced to do that because the law will not allow me to get legal
medications. That’s a terrible thing. (Dog barks)

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Dale feels fortunate that at least now he has his pills
and his daughters’ support. (on camera) And how do you envision your death?

DALE GILSDORF I hope that I will know when and be able to call my family
together and say, “This is it. Prepare whatever rituals you want to. I
don’t particularly have any.”

DALE’S DAUGHTER I envision holding his hand.

DALE GILSDORF And I’ll probably take the sedatives and just go to sleep.

JOHN STOSSEL We’ll be back in a moment.

(Commercial Break)

ANNOUNCER “Sex, Drugs & Consenting Adults” continues. Here again from the
Statue of Liberty, John Stossel.

JOHN STOSSEL This statue was paid for by something that could be a crime if
you did it—gambling. The French got some of the money they needed to build
her from the proceeds of a lottery. (VO) Gambling is the biggest consensual
crime. This is legal gambling, but illegal gambling’s huge. The NCAA says
about $100 billion is illegally spent just on sports betting every year.
(Cheering) Occasionally, vice squads arrest some of the bookies. Police say
one operates out of this house in this quiet Miami suburb. Worried that the
people in the house will resist, police put on their bulletproof vests and
attack en masse.

MIAMI POLICE OFFICER Police! Police!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Inside, they handcuff the suspect and spend hours
ransacking the house—searching clothes, the bed, everything, before they
haul him off to jail. Will this make America safer? Will it make any
difference? Even the police wonder.

SGT PETE ANDREU, MIAMI DADE POLICE People are going to gamble. You shut one
down, and it’s going to—there’s going to open up another one, you know, and
it’s going to—it’s a perpetual problem.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) But if gambling’s a problem, why is government such an
eager bookie, spending tax money on ads to lure more of us in?

LOTTERY SPOKESWOMAN (TV COMMERCIAL) The New York lotto jackpot is now $15
million. Cool.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) The law is so inconsistent. Consider ticket scalping. (on
camera) How much?

3RD SCALPER $75 each.

JOHN STOSSEL $75 each.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) These guys were offering to sell me tickets to a
basketball game at Madison Square Garden. Now, we all know that ticket
scalping is evil and illegal. But why? (on camera) Are you a scalper?

1ST SCALPER I’m a scalper, yeah.

JOHN STOSSEL So are you doing something bad?

1ST SCALPER No, I’m not. They should make it legal, because we’re not doing
anything wrong.

WOMAN AT EVENT Where are you getting these tickets? Are you buying them?

1ST SCALPER Ma’am, I buy them.

WOMAN AT EVENT From?

1ST SCALPER Nice women and gentlemen ...

WOMAN AT EVENT ... that are neatly dressed like me.

1ST SCALPER Right.

MAN ON MEGAPHONE These people are leeches. They will take your money and go.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Madison Square Garden wants the scalpers arrested.

ROBERT RUSSO, GENERAL MANAGER, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN Why should some
parasite be allowed to do that on the street?

JOHN STOSSEL What if my family gets sick, and we can’t go to the game? I
can’t come here and resell my tickets?

ROBERT RUSSO We really don’t want that going on around our business. It’s
unseemly.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Because it’s unseemly, it’s illegal? Yes, it should be
illegal, says this man. (on camera) It’s wrong to sell things for more?

MAN AT EVENT That’s right. Right.

JOHN STOSSEL What if I offer to buy your bracelet here for more than you
paid for it? That should be illegal, too?

MAN AT EVENT No, then I’m making a profit. (Laughter)

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) As with gambling, drug laws, sex laws, there’s lots of
hypocrisy here. (on camera) I thought making a profit’s OK?

MAN AT EVENT For me, it is. Not for them. (Laughter)

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) That about sums it up. But if we’re adults, why can’t we
make decisions about what we buy and sell, about how we use our bodies, by
ourselves?

NADINE STROSSEN We certainly don’t want government to be big daddy or big
mommy. You, as a mature adult, have the right to make decisions about your
own life, even if other people might think that they’re stupid decisions.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) Of course, people who don’t like your decision have every
right to complain about your behavior.

ANTI—PORNOGRAPHY PROTESTERS No porn! No porn!

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) To boycott, to picket, to embarrass you. And God bless
the critics.

MALE DEMONSTRATOR It sets a bad example. It sets a bad trend.

JOHN STOSSEL (VO) The critics make America a better place by standing up
for virtue, making us think about what’s good and evil. Shaming us into
being better people. But shaming is one thing, using the force of law another.

14TH POLICE OFFICER Keep your head down. You listen to me.

PETER MCWILLIAMS The law is a very powerful thing. The law means that you
send people out with guns to get people when they don’t follow it. It’s a
very, very serious matter.

JOHN STOSSEL (on camera) But people are weak. Having laws helps people be
moral.

PETER MCWILLIAMS Moral is based on free choice. You have a series of
choices, and you make the right choice. Any 5—year—old can understand this.
Don’t mess with their stuff, they won’t mess with your stuff. Really? Yes.
What’s the catch? The catch is, you have to tolerate what they’re doing
over there with their toys, and they get to tolerate what you’re doing over
here with your toys. So with our tolerance, we buy our freedom.

JOHN STOSSEL Freedom is what America’s supposed to be about. Maybe we
should rethink the rules. Why not just allow consenting adults to do
anything that’s peaceful? That’s our program for tonight. Please stay tuned
for Nightline after your local news. I’m John Stossel. Good night, and
thanks for watching our program, which was really about liberty.

Copyright 1998 ABC News

Checked-by: Richard Lake