“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…..” – Amendment IV, U.S. Constitution
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” – Amendment IX, U.S. Constitution
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” – Amendment X, U.S. Constitution
It’s astounding to me that this should even be an issue, but the following is just some random pondering and makes me wonder if we should have had a Constitutional Amendment in the Bill of Rights to guarantee our right to choose what we each put into our own bodies. What about the right to eat, drink, swallow, smoke or otherwise ingest anything you wish as a fundamental, individual, natural right on which government should not be able to infringe, any more than on the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, or the right to be secure in your person, papers, house and effects? It’s a question of ownership—do you own your own body or not? If not, you’re a slave. If so, then no government has any right to stop you from eating grease and sugar, drinking caffeine and absinthe, swallowing pills and semen, smoking tobacco and cannabis, injecting adrenaline and morphine, inhaling vapo-rub and paint fumes, etc., ad nauseam. To regulate any of these personal choices of voluntary actions in which individuals give themselves consent is as ridiculous to me as passing laws to criminalize getting your ears pierced, having plastic surgery, drinking raw milk, eating meat, or masturbation, etc. It’s simply none of the government’s business.

People make choices to self-medicate, to be kosher, or vegan, or Atkin’s dieters, moonshiners, pot-heads, vegetarians, huffers, preppers, porn stars, pie and hot dog eating contestants, energy drink-drinkers, etc. Maybe if we recognized that our liberties are inextricably linked to our neighbor’s, we could see the failure to protect our eccentric neighbor’s right to make their own diet and health choices are linked to our own equal right. If you support a law to keep your neighbor from smoking marijuana, don’t be surprised if he then supports a law to keep you from eating according to your religious dietary beliefs—both uses of the law to prohibit individual choice of consumption are just as irrational and oppressive as the other. Maybe the same ‘equal protection’ under constitutional law which allows you to cook and eat what you grow in your garden and buy from the grocer should apply to raw milk, marijuana and pharmaceuticals as well.

Sometimes it seems people can be so gullible in how quick we are to give up our rights, it wouldn’t surprise me that if the government banned eating and drinking anything, many people would die of dehydration and starvation before questioning the authority of our corrupt and incompetent, oppressive government. Just like those religious zealots who fly planes into buildings or drink Jim Jones brand kool-aid, or herds of sheep and cattle which can be easily corralled into a slaughterhouse, those who support any dietary/health prohibitions on others are blindly contributing to their own senseless destruction along with that of the crowd.

Whether you are for food freedom, drug legalization, religious dietary liberty, property rights, individual choice, or you’re just a free market capitalist, it seems to me we should all have a common goal of keeping the government out of our refrigerators, pantries, humidors and bedrooms. I would think common sense should tell us that the right to put what you want to in your own body is just as sacrosanct as the right to relieve it when nature calls. But maybe prohibitionists would happily sacrifice their right to relieve their colon and bladder on the altar of government authority as well. Maybe that explains why those waging this asinine ‘war on drugs’ are so full of shit.

About the Author: A.G. House is a medically retired disabled combat veteran recovering from chronic severe post traumatic stress disorder and an advocate for medical marijuana, alternative treatments for PTSD, free enterprise, self-ownership, food and health freedom, and individual liberty.