The citizens of Oregon have voted to legalize “small amounts” of a variety of drugs—including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and the like.

Others demur from that decision.

I have a larger concern.

For those advocating the legalization of “small amounts” of drugs–whether cocaine, heroine, marijuana, or anything else—a question: what’s your limiting principle? What natural limit–not your well-intentioned promise, or the behavior of those who succeed you—prevents you from increasing the upper limit of “small?”

Absent that limit, the only reasonable limit for legalizing such drugs is Zero. And, given the damage done not just to the user but to others around the user (vis., the damage done the user’s family through the debilitating effects of the addiction even from a “small amount” or the damage done the store employee(s) and customers as the user commits robberies under the influence in his effort to obtain the wherewithal to pay for his next “small amount”), perhaps the optimal reasonable limit should remain Zero.