This is an editorial submission I made to the WFP today.
A recent letter to the Winnipeg Free Press made the rather simplistic argument that illicit drugs should never be legalized because the express purpose of drugs is to get people high. The author was of the opinion that everyone who snorts a line of coke or takes a hit off a bong immediately gets behind the wheel of a car and causes a traffic accident. Ignorant as this opinion is it got me to wondering what really is behind the continued prohibition of illicit narcotics.
The war on drugs makes absolutely no sense when one looks at it rationally. It has cost tens of thousands of lives worldwide, billions in tax dollars and is no closer to being over than it was on the day it started. It has turned some developing regions into “narco states”—where despotic drug mafias and totalitarian political factions rule—and created a lucrative black-market economy in the developed world that siphons off billions of dollars annually.
Our view of illegal drugs is really just a problem of perception. People are taught by others, most of whom have never even used the narcotics in question, that drugs are inherently evil. I’m not out to glorify drug use, but I do know many people who use them or have in the past—they are not a disproportionately wicked bunch. Some have gone to prison, some are ne’er-do-wells, but most of them are pretty regular folks and some are even extremely successful. They are like everyone else who has ever done something that someone else pointlessly told them not to do. They discovered the thing they were told was so bad and dangerous was actually pretty harmless and enjoyable, and continued to do it despite the risks.
Yes, some people do get addicted and ruin their lives; on the other hand we gladly allow people the choice to destroy their lives with alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs every day. The chemically addictive properties of many narcotics are no more of a menace than many of the legal options that people get hooked on, indeed some of the banned substances are not at all chemically addictive. But perhaps our disdain for them gives society somewhere to direct the fear and disgust many people feel for those who experience addictions, and/or the desire to distort their realities.
The dilemma with legislating our disgust though is that it creates a whole new host of problems. For one thing laws that are considered to be inane or arbitrary are ignored, no matter how well meaning—stakeout a three-way stop sign in a residential neighborhood for a few hours if you don’t believe me. In the long run such regulations lead to greater disrespect for the law in general.
Another difficulty is that making drugs illegal puts the lives of people who make bad choices in very bad hands. Users usually find their next fix without too much trouble, their dealers are happy to sell them all the drugs they can afford, no questions asked. However when someone wants to escape the brutal cycle of depression, anxiety and criminality that accompanies serious substance abuse they often find there is no sympathy and nowhere to turn.
A third problem is that increased enforcement tends to raise the price for illicit drugs driving even more dollars underground. The billions that drug users spend on their habit disappear into thin air. Instead of being responsibly managed by people who might think to open a rehab clinic or a homeless shelter the proceeds build armies for foreign despots and supply guns for the gangs in our cities. In other words, in the process of trying to save people from themselves our primary accomplishment thus far has been to make some extremely nasty criminal organizations, juntas and terrorist syndicates very rich, powerful and dangerous.
The demand for narcotics has not abated since drug enforcement became the international juggernaut it is today. Whereas the music of the sixties glamourized the use of drugs as mind-expanding, the music today glamourizes not just the drugs but the violence and big payouts that accompany a gangster lifestyle. It used to be that the pusherman was reviled; now he is a hero.
The moral superiority that drives the continued prohibition of certain drugs while generously prescribing others is hypocritical beyond belief, meanwhile the war on drugs is a costly exercise in futility. The way forward is to legalize narcotics while finding ways to make them less sexy to youth.
Allowing people to indulge will not create more of an epidemic than already exists, it will however permit scientists to study drug use more effectively, let help agencies attempt more controversial methods for rehabilitation and give governments access to a fair share of the profits. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all though will be that the lives of countless peace officers, military personnel and civilians will be saved by starving the drug armies out of existence and denying street gangs access to easy money.
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