My one Libertarian streak is that I’ve always believed that consenting adults shouldn’t be limited in what they can do with their time and money and bodies. Children should be protected–I don’t see why grade schoolers are even allowed to play tackle football or eat at fast-food restaurants–but grown-ups are grown-ups and should be treated as such.

But it’s tougher for me to maintain this stance over time, simply because some behaviors have costs (financial and social) that can plague us for generations, whether we’re talking about drugs or gambling or other behaviors. The crack epidemic in NYC led to broken homes that sadly reverberate to this day, damaging children who weren’t even alive during the crisis. Of course, the War on Drugs does little to combat these problems and just creates a black market, so I don’t know if there’s any good answer. But whenever there’s a ballot initiative regarding casinos, which are supposedly going to boost the economy, I know it’s fool’s gold. The attendant problems of such establishments take from the economy at least as much as they give back. From Elisabetta Povoledo in the New York Times:

“PAVIA, Italy — Renowned for its universities and a celebrated Renaissance monastery, this Lombardy town about 25 miles south of Milan has in recent years earned another, more dubious, distinction: the gambling capital of Italy.

Slot machines and video lottery terminals, known as V.L.T.s, can be found all over in coffee bars and tobacco shops, gas stations, mom-and-pop shops and shopping malls, not to mention 13 dedicated gambling halls. By some counts, there is one slot machine or V.L.T. for every 104 of the city’s 68,300 residents.

Critics blame the concentration of the machines for an increase in chronic gambling — and debt, bankruptcies, depression, domestic violence and broken homes — recorded by social service workers in Pavia.

But in many ways, Pavia is merely the most extreme example of the spread of gambling throughout Italy since lawmakers significantly relaxed regulation of the gambling industry a decade ago.”