'SEX, DRUGS AND CONSENTING ADULTS': A GRAB BAG OF 'VICTIMLESS CRIMES'

John Stossel, libertarians' gift to television, takes up the cause Tuesday
night on ABC at 10 p.m., of people who are being punished for "victimless
crimes." They include pornographers, drug users and sellers, gamblers,
ticket scalpers, prostitutes, homosexuals, and sufferers in search of help
in committing suicide.

It's a brisk tour that in pursuit of the theme of liberty conflates
different sorts of legal and ethical issues. What the examples of
lawbreakers being arrested for consensual activities have in common,
Stossel argues, is society's habit of imposing certain moral views on those
who don't share them. Moreover, he discerns hypocrisy and inconsistency in
a state's efforts to suppress gambling while promoting its own lottery and
to ban marijuana while permitting the use of alcohol and tobacco.

As for the famous war on drugs, which has filled the nation's prisons to
little avail, Stossel observes concisely, "It's what happens when you
attempt to outlaw something that lots of people want." An advocate of
euthanasia advances the proposition that assisting people into death is
"not abandonment, it's compassionate care."

Stossel sums up with the rule that consenting adults ought to be allowed to
do anything they want to as long as it's peaceful. That may not be the last
word on such an array of disputed matters, but it might serve as a sound
first word.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)