# David Boaz on Ending Drug Prohibition **URL:** **By** David Boaz **Published:** February 3, 2000 --- > **Editor’s Note** — Grant Babcock > > This speech is about the freedom to use drugs—but it’s _really_ about importance of individual autonomy, a central theme in Boaz’s conception of libertarianism, one he positions at the intersection of arguments for human freedom grounded in ethics, economics, and jurisprudence. Boaz gives examples of the way individual autonomy is under intellectual assault from the left and the right, and the way it is infringed by the state’s violence against peaceful people. He emphasizes the importance of enumerated powers under the Constitution, the role of federalism, and the consequences of the erosion of those protections. David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute and the author of _Libertarianism: A Primer _(1997). Here he speaks at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’ (NORML’s) National Convention in 2000 on the failure of drug prohibition in America and more broadly about why enumerating and thus limiting the powers of the federal government is so important generally.