Ohio Governor John Kasich announced, backed by his legislators and their self-awarded medical expertise degrees as well as personal experience with prescription painkillers (imagining what it would be like to take them), that Ohio was passing legislation limiting painkiller prescriptions.
http://fox8.com/2017/03/30/ohio-governor-announces-new-limits-on-pain-prescribing/
Conservative thinkers and moral apologists rejoiced as their government again set further precedent on regulating what its citizens can do with their own food and drug intake. Wait what? Well, they were celebrating something... Oh, it was that the government did something vaguely in line with their morality. That's why they were happy. But the headline could just as easily have been written the first way. Conceptually, the government asserted its lawmaking into the privacy of your homes AGAIN.
Republicans cheered though despite a victory for the expanse of government influence. Why? Because the lawmakers were on their side this time. With Donald Trump's election, dies a concept of "I want government out of my life so I can do right," and grows a wave of this concept that "I do want the government to do more. I just want them to do for my side and not the other guys'." But eventually the pendulum will swing both ways, and the "other side" will be the ones passing regulations. Just like this law, they'll reference something scary (drugs/guns/etc.) and a death count that won't be put in perspective; and they'll TAKE FROM YOU AGAIN. And no one will be able to object because you did it before!
Surrounding the legislation is the specter of a program that has continued to "fight drug abuse and addiction" in Ohio to the tune of $1 Billion. "Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced a $3.5 million program last week that’s intended to help the growing number of children taken into state custody because of their parents’ addiction," the AP writes. NO, THOSE NUMBERS ARE NOT REVERSED.
Aside from these concepts are the glaring facts about alcohol and tobacco use which lead to 120 TIMES more deaths than all other drugs combined! The finger isn't even pointed at the deadliest culprit!
There is a major disconnect here that the government (authors of such great programs as Jim Crow and creators of such marvels as the welfare state) can force us to improve our moral culture. No doubt, immoral decisions that destroy people's lives are sad; but lawmakers will NEVER be able to legislate people from hurting themselves. We need to look to improve our own morals and values in our own culture. It's vague and it's difficult, but the answers to moral questions will always be decided by the people.