This week I'm back with a vengeance so you've been warned.

The following might just be the column in which you accurately decide that I've gone over the edge. Who am I really kidding? I'm sure you concluded that ages ago.

However, I am really going to play my libertarian hand, so to speak, since I rarely stumble into that territory in this space.

Also, in keeping up with my usual vagary, will ramble on incessantly from subject to subject whipping in the wind like a bra on a clothesline during a hurricane.

Before I truly launch, I want to clarify something about the word in question. Libertarian, with a capital L, is one who is affiliated with that particular political party.

A small l libertarian can mean that a person follows the basic tenants and/or philosophy involved with the big L without actually being a member of said party.

For example, Ron Paul is a libertarian thinker or has strong lib (hence forth the abbreviation for libertarian), tendencies but, is a registered Republican. Get it? * (In “Horsin' Around with Roseanne” style, I'm leaving a little footnote or definition at the very end of this erratic rant.)

Moving along, you see, the first thing that a person thinks when he hears the word “libertarian” is this: “Oh, aren't those the kooks who want to legalize heroin?”

Well, actually that is a partial description of the lib platform, kind of, but there is way more to it, of course, and it all involves personal liberty, including drug use.

In other words, doing to one's own body what he/she wants as long as it harms no others—and, as long as one is an adult, should be socially acceptable, legal and all that jazz.

Also, actually “allowing” property owners to do as they please on their own land, as long as it will harm no others, is another example of the lib statement.

Are you getting the theme here of doing no harm to others? It's almost like that hippopotamus oath, you know, the one that doctors take.

As for illegal substances, and now legal substances, like pain killers that are prescribed, etc., yes, we all know that these can lead to addiction and physical harm to others if someone gets super high and goes nuts. So, the do no harm argument begins as that is the first thing one says when approached with the subject of legalizing anything.

The last time I checked, the same can happen with alcohol but it is perfectly fine and dandy for a person to purchase 10 bottles of vodka and a keg of beer, all in one fell swoop, if he so desires.

Well, I've also heard tell of just as many abusive husbands, wives, etc., who go cuckoo and hurt other people without having any kind of substance involved. They are just naturally hideous individuals, and that's it, Fort Pitt, as Mother would say.

I am just getting sick and tired of all the negative press that prescription pills get these days. Plus, due to not being able to genuinely be in charge of one's own self, anyone ingesting such medication must be monitored to the max. Oh, but it's for your own good don't you know?

First off, or maybe it's second by now, we never hear of the good that some medicines do for people. For instance, I know many, many, (one might even say a ton of), people with chronic pain. If it were not for those nasty legally prescribed pills, they would have no quality of life. People have been known to take their own lives due to horrific pain related issues.

Without these so-called-dangerous substances, a lot of people would positively be on governmental assistance because they would not be able to work.

I will go one further and really freak out the reading public. This is something with which some of my libertarian heroes, like John Stossel and Penn, of Penn and Teller fame, would agree totally. Hold on to something right now because you will be thrown from your current

position after you get a load of this.

I, as one who leans so far libertarian that I look like a curious dog with a cocked-to-the-side-head, don't think prescriptions should even be necessary in many cases. OMG! What did she just say?? She couldn't have uttered those words...

A grown adult, with pain, or another affliction, could, for instance, be guided by professionals in the field, or medical personnel of some sort, in order to ascertain the correct medicine, ointment, pill, powder—whatever, to utilize.

He would then be given the option of which remedies would fit the bill, maybe throw in a consult with a pharmacist and boom, purchase said dope.

I can feel the white coat crew charging toward my door right now. Thankfully, I'm in an undisclosed location like an underground bunker—yeah, that's it.

Anyhow, these darn capsules, etc., are so closely audited that there is no leeway if a human being has a particularly bad week of misery and needs more than prescribed.

That is just one example and, admittedly, much of it is tied up with the fantastic insurance companies, as well, but let's not visit that territory right now. Glad you agree with that decision.

I, as do other lovers of liberty, get the feeling that folks are under the impression that if something becomes legal, everyone will suddenly smoke it, shoot it, snort it, or ingest it in some manner. That's just plain old silly. How many of you would snort cocaine if it became legal tomorrow? OK, I see a few hands went up but really, think about this for moment.

Time's up as I must move beyond pills before you think I'm a total junkie on the street—even though I do have an actually dwelling in which I could be a junkie, but I would NEVER chose to do so, even if it WERE legal.

Let's talk about some fun new stuff coming down the pike in my township. I'm not going to name the township. It is up to you to stalk me and find out.