Hunter S. Thompson Suicide

About a week has passed since Thompson offed himself. This clearly shouldn't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the man, considering his massive intake of alcohol and drugs virtually every day of his life for the past forty plus years. I've often had a libertarian stance in the past when it came to substance abuse, but I've since revised my point of view. In the past, I felt that what a person put into their body was their business, and that drugs should be legalized. I've changed my point of view on this because there is no way that anyone could indulge in the destruction of their mind and body without affecting other people around them. If it were the case that druggies and alcoholics would go away to some far off place and shoot or drink themselves up without impeding the lives of their friends and loved ones, I might still be sypathetic to the libertarian line. But that never is the case, and as a result, family and friends suffer greatly when someone slips down into that hole. Why I bring this up is because Thompson, whilst under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, put a bullet in his skull while his six-year-old grandson was in the next room. Of course, as Thompson was a counter-culture hero, this fact was buried or just plain omitted. I've never been a fan of Thompson's writing; I find it self-indulgent and generally useless. I have plenty of friends of mine (and fans of his) that would disagree with me. Fair enough. But what is indisputable is that Thompson went out like a chump, and he, in all likelihood, caused permanent psychological damage to a six-year-old boy. What a loser.