I agree. Even if the war on drugs could be won (and won without imposing a totalitarian system in the US), I'd be against the principle of the government telling people they can't take them or they face severe punishment. Of course many of these drugs are in many (but not all) cases destructive, so reducing their use is a good goal, but a good goal isn't enough. You have to look at the results.
The results are that in order to get this good goal, we trample on individual freedom (both in the very idea of prohibiting drugs and in the measures we take to enforce the laws), and help create more crime (not just the crime of using drugs itself, but secondary crime with disputes over markets, and payments becoming violent and with users committing crimes to support their habit), and we spend a huge amount of government money, without apparently seriously impacting drug use.
I think for many drugs use is cut by "the war". I don't think the "its illegal so its cool factor", is as large as the deterrence factor. But drug use clearly isn't slashed by the laws against it. So we only get a modest decrease in exchange for the heavy price in dollars, in crime, and in lost liberty.
That having been said I might not want to jump straight to unregulated legalization of everything. My principles would support that idea, but it might be best to take practical small steps. Perhaps allowing lightly regulated marijuana use, and then moving on from there without a specific predetermined stopping point, instead seeing the results and reacting to them. |
