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Help your country, stop the drug war |
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Written by Reyne
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Apr 19, 2006 at 06:33 AM |
The drug war costs billions every year and does nothing to make this society safer. Legalizing drugs is a necessary step.
Every year the government wastes over $11 billion on the drug war.1 The American public has been brainwashed to the extent that there is no public outcry for such atrocious squandering of money. People will tell you that drugs are bad, terrible things that turn good people into brainless zombies fueled only by a drive for more drugs. Certainly, illegal drugs are not safe, although, certain ones are no more harmful than alcohol and cigarettes. They will also preach that legalizing drugs would cause a slippery slope, leading to wild uncontrollable spread of drug abuse that will enslave the youth of the nation. Such paranoia is not grounded in logic.
The irrational fear is that if drugs were legalized, everyone would become witless drug addicts and the nation would fall under the burden of treating druggies. In reality, people who are reasonably sane and intelligent would not allow themselves to become addicted to drugs when they know, in advance, how dangerous and miserable addiction can be. Certainly, there are people who are far from sane and intelligent, but we can't make laws specifically catered to those people. If we did, the legal system would be bogged down with countless laws that would make daily life absurdly cumbersome for the rest of us. For example, household cleaners would have to be regulated. Many of those can be used as addictive inhalants, leading to brain damage and death for the hapless victims. Not to mention, prescription drugs would need to be even more controlled with further legislation. Annually, over 100,000 people die from prescription drugs,2 which is five times more than the number of people who die from illicit drugs (20,000 deaths).3 Tobacco accounted for about 400,000 deaths, alcohol lead to around 100,000 deaths, and general unhealthiness from lack of exercise and bad diets lead to 300,000 deaths.3 New laws would be needed to protect people who abuse tobacco, alcohol, and food. The point is that there will always be people who would choose to have their momentary pleasures over having a longer life. It's not the responsibility of a democratic government to regulate that choice for people.
Furthermore, forbidding people to do things they enjoy or think they might like will only make them want to do those things even more. It's a rather simple psychological concept that most parents with young children understand. The immature impulse is to want things that seem out of reach. However, the government keeps failing to understand such a trivial idea, which is probably due to politicians who are stuck in their own juvenile dreams for fame and power.
We should also learn from history. Prohibition was a total failure that had no beneficial effect on society. Instead, it caused a massive crime wave, increasing rates of homicides, violent property crimes, and corruption.4 The only good prohibition did was to show us how futile and harmful it is for a government to control the appetites of its people.
Let's get smart about drugs by putting the criminal organizations out of business. Rather than waste billions of dollars to fight a drug war, make money by selling drugs at cost with a significant tax. No one but the government would make money when drugs are available at an honest price. Put warning signs on all drugs, and let people decide for themselves. Much like how alcohol is regulated, people caught operating machinery or vehicles while on drugs should have their license revoked and be heavily fined. It would no longer be special, or alternative, to obtain drugs. Drugs would become an ordinary substance that has potential of causing major health damage and death. Such a policy would bankrupt all the drug lords and any other criminal organization that are funded by drugs. You can't win a war on drugs. You can avoid a war completely and make society safer by turning illegal drugs into a mundane, cheap, thrill that is hardly worth the health risk.
Further Reading 1"Drug Data Summary." March 2003. Office of National Drug Control Policy. 18 Apr. 2006 2 Fraser, Jessica. "Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists." News Target 05 July 2005. 18 Apr 2006 3 Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241. 4 Thornton, Mark. "Alcohol Prohibition Was A Failure." Policy Analysis. 17 July 1991. CATO Institute. 18 Apr. 2006
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Dear Reyne 