Insight

I am opposed to the war on drugs for several reasons which I shall list below.

1.)  Cost effectiveness.  People have an innate desire to seek an altered state, whether it is chemically induced, mentally induced or physically induced.  When we take drugs off the street, we make it more lucrative to sell drugs.  It is similar to if the gold supply was suddenly cut in half, the value of current gold would double.  The same is true with drugs, making it even more beneficial to smuggle smaller amounts of drugs which in turn would be more difficult to seize.  if half the amount of heroin in the world was seized, the remaining half would be worth twice as much.  Which means that smuggling half the amount would net the same basic economic benefit.  The more drugs we take, the more they are worth-making it more attractive for small timers. 

2.)  Quality controls.  Under a system of regulation we could ensure quality controls on drugs.  Some drugs would of course fall above the line (based primarily on physical dependency and direct health risks; by direct I mean the drug itself causes the harm not misuse of the drug-such as driving high or playing with guns high).  This type of system would reduce the threat of the value of less drugs increasing as postulated in number 1.  An example would be cocaine, in pure form it would probably test over the line for physical dependency.  Alternatively a legal version could be created that is less potent, similar to what we already do with alcohol and nicotine limits.  It may at first appear that current users would only purchase the illegal stronger version from the street.  However the mere ease of access and most likely lower cost would drive people to purchase the legal version more often.  Sometimes people will choose beer and wine for a party over liquor because in some states it is easier to purchase beer and wine than liquor.  Every time a person chooses the legal alternative to the street version it cuts directly into the profits of illegal dealers without driving up the value of their product.  When we take drugs out of the system, the demand is still there only the price goes up.  This would be consumer choice which would be cutting back demand for the illegal drug.  Even if at first negligible the effect will be cumulative.  Conversely as time goes on the illegal street drugs will be viewed similar to moonshine.  Many people drink alcohol, not many people will purchase homebrewed alcohol from someone they do not know.  This will be especially true with new generations who were not exposed to the illegal alternative.  While it is true ’some’ people with knowledge could isolate the weaker version of the drug to create a higher potency version-the effect would be mostly for personal and localized use.  It would still be difficult to seek these people out, the drugs in potent version are already on the streets now, and if potential to abuse a substance beyond regular use is the determinate factor it could easily be applied to many prescription medications and alcohol.  There are also several methods by which we could counter people over taking the legal version-one of which would be including some agent that when built up to a certain dose level would induce vomiting.  The point is that regulation, even though the product would be weaker-would work within capitalist economic controls to cut back on the illegal drug trade; as well as being safer for the users.

3.)  The future of drugs is coming to a head.  Within a generation we will have a variety of smart drugs that will do everything from increasing memory and recall temporarily to increasing body strength without the side effects of steroids.  We need a system in place to regulate these drugs now, not just say any form of a recreational drug is ‘illegal’  Viagra and similar drugs are clearly recreational considering that the vast majority of people who use them do not have erectile dysfunction.  We cannot simply ignore the fact that drugs are here to stay and with advances in understanding the mind many drugs will have neglible side effects but appeal to the common person.  Drugs that increase memory skills have been useful in studies of mice.  How many students cramming for a test would reject such a drug based merely on illegality?  The government may make an argument about altered states and side effects from illegal drugs-many people don’t always desire to be ‘out of it’.  However when it comes to something that will appeal to a majority of people it would be far better to have regulations in effect than to have it be in the hands of the black market.

4.)  Who produces the drugs.  Under regulation drug companies can seek to provide recreational drugs to ensure their safeness as much as possible.  Clear labels can be used because the process is controlled.  If there is a way to get the same effect with less side effects;and this is clearly posted on the packaging-the drug company that reduces physical dependency will be ahead of the game.  There will actually be real incentive to making safer drugs and with advances in technology this will be the outcome.  Imagine going into a grocery store to buy cough syrup for a child.  If they were clearly labeled as to addictiveness, with 1 being very low and 10 being very high-would you an equivalent cough syrup with a 2 or a 3 on it?  How about soda pop?  Under regulation drug companies would be allowed to legally develop new recreational drugs or manipulate the ones we have now and free market consumerism would motivate these drugs to be as harmless as possible by demand.

5.  Free market capitalism.  The only reasons to regulate a free market is when it deprives people of choice.  If a person is dead they clearly have no choice, so health reasons can be taken into account if it’s directly linked to the product.  Misuse of cars and guns can kill people, as can misuse of a number of legal and illegal substances.  Monopolies deprive people of choice as much as physical dependency does.  If McDonalds placed crack in their special sauce, they would have as much of an unfair advantage as if they had bought out all the local fast food markets or otherwise prevented people from access to other fast food.  So for both those reasons the free market can be regulated because both harm the free market more than regulation does.  However any recreational drug does not fit these two conditions.  We are regulating the free market purely based on opinions.  It doesn’t matter how physically dependent a person becomes on a drug or the health risk.  We measure drugs by what medical benefit they give purely-it has nothing to do with recreational use.  Other substances such as tobacco or alcohol we get around by classifying them as foods-even though their active ingredients clearly qualify as drugs.  There is no capitalist excuse for not allowing adults to purchase what they choose too.  The whole point of capitalism is to leave the system to itself, that we are not intelligent enough to control every aspect of society.  Otherwise we’d be communists.  And history has shown that the least government control the better.  Society needs to be left to grow and develop on its own, we cannot direct every facet of social growth.

6.)  No law should be created with the intent to cause an action.  There are exceptions to this rule but most laws that follow this are clearly social engineering.  Are we creating laws to prevent people from using drugs, or to create a certain class of people in our society.  I would argue the latter.  We want a drug free society and are innacting laws to put this into effect.  Our definition of drug is loose at best, and what happens to people under this system harms the individual in the supposed benefit of the many.  Individuals should be held as the equal to groups.  When the individual harms the group the groups rights take precedent, when the group harms the individual the reverse should be true as well.  The purpose of law is to prevent an action-not to cause one.  In my opinion the law is already there, the only purpose of the state in this is to recognize the laws that already exist.  I have used this example before but will do so again.  When you slap a childs hand away from the hot stove-the law is don’t touch the hot stove.  The slap is the punishment.  If left without law the punishment would still be there, but in a more harmful fashion-as in getting severely burned.  The same is true of law in general.  Letting a murderer run free in society is more harmful than putting him in prison.  Letting a rapist run free is more harmful than putting them in prison.  These conditions are not met with most drug crimes.

7.)  I could go on but I will finish by stating that we have more people in prison than any other nation in this world does or has in the past.  The cost is skyrocketing.  We let rapists out of prison to make room for drug offenders.  And the harm done by putting people in prison and the mark on their record is most often much more harmful to the person than the drugs themselves were in the first place.  No crime should be punished more than it’s actual real harm is.  We shouldn’t murder someone for stealing.  An eye for an eye, is clearly appropriate when discussion drug offenses.  In biblical times, an eye for an eye was a liberal view point.  Previously offenders of minor infractions were punished much more than the infraction itself.  Yet by sentencing people to prison or giving them a record for drug use we are doing the same thing as cutting someones eyes out for stealing a loaf of bread.

More to come.