“I can think of no political right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness.”

—  Sam Harris

Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ (5 July 2011) <nowiki>[audio version https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life</nowiki>]
2010s
Context: The “war on drugs” has been well lost, and should never have been waged. While it isn’t explicitly protected by the U. S. Constitution, I can think of no political right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time.

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Sam Harris 151
American author, philosopher and neuroscientist 1967

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