[nietzreznor]

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Heroin usage, however detrimental to society (increased currently by state intervention), is a personal choice that one should be allowed to consider based on personal conviction and ones freedom to make an educated choice regarding matters that will not harm any unwilling victim (as with most things). I thought this typical line of argument was shared amongst myself and ACist comrades and thus the notion by a respected ACist that there should be undemocratic "institutions" that PROHIBITS (makes "laws) against heroin usage "anywhere under any circumstances" (should the market demand so) took me by surprise. Why should we desire to be slaves to the market as opposed to the state? I don't care how heroin would respond to trends in the market; what matters is ones freedom and ability to choose free of extrinsic powers. I mean this line of thinking by Friedman has horrendous implications on everyday life. If it came to fruition; what else would institutions make laws against through percieved perceptions and predictions of the market? I dare not exercise such a thought.

Also, quite frankly, who in their right mind wants our lives to be decided over this way as opposed to some sort of democratic system that integrates at least some influence by a larger populous?

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Well, yeah, there is the danger that, in a free market society, unlibertarian laws could become the norm, or unlibertarian social attitudes might prevail. But I'm not sure exactly how this is a concern solely when private companies and "undemocratic" markets are involved (markets are HIGHLY democratic)--it seems to me that the 'democracies' you tout constantly pass some highly unlibertarian legislation as well.
So I think there are two important factors here--the first is the importance of people having generally libertarian attitudes, and the second is the importance of decentralization. With respect to the first point, regardless of whether laws come intoi existence via companies on a market or people in localized democracies, if the people doing the voting are highly illiberal, then the society is going to be highly illiberal. Valling something a "democracy" won't make drugs legal if basically all the people are horrified by them and want laws against them (one could argue, I think, that it's much easier in a modern democracy to get such legislation passed, since a person who wanted heroin banned just has to go and vote and can force others to bear the costs). But while the issue of people having highly unlibertarian attitudes might be a problematic issue in some small subset of cases, in general I don't think it's a big worry since we would be talking about a society that was libertarian enough to get rid of government--I highly doubt that same society would start passing anti-drug laws (Death Star argument).

With respect to decentralization, the more decentralized things get, the less it matters if some small town or community passes unlibertarian laws, since it is much much easier to leave and go somewhere a bit more open-minded. It is also probable that some towns/communities would have more 'traditional' democratic processes for creating laws, and these law-creating processes (just like the market-based ones) would feature the same 'check'--that one could easily go elsewhere.