Although the Abu Ghirab prison scandal and intelligence breakdown regarding the Iraq War have seized the headlines, the United States fights another destructive and unjust war thousands of miles away from the Middle East.
Last year, Congress earmarked $19 billion – nearly twice the amount spent on military operations in Afghanistan – to fight a war, not against insurgents, tyrants, or terrorists, but against American adults, on American soil, under the guise of the war on drugs.
Some battles should be fought and considered just. For example, the fight against murder, rape and theft is entirely legitimate. These are insidious acts that must be countered by force.
The war on drugs is an entirely different matter. Consenting adult drug users do not employ coercion as murders, rapists and thieves do. By using force against non-aggressive people, who make proprietary choices, America reduces its citizenry to ethereal abstractions devoid of self-ownership and individual integrity.
It is irresponsible for the government to believe they can make better decisions than the individual.
This paternalism is incompatible with our democratic ethic. If people are so stupid that they cannot be allowed to decide for themselves what substances to inject into their bodies, how can they be trusted in the ballot box?
Imagine this logic in a less stigmatized scenario. If you want to heal a broken foot, should you act according to what the majority of voting Americans say or the best foot doctor you can find? The answer is easily intelligible and its reasoning equally applicable to the soul. Individuals, not the government, should hold sole authority to make such personal, non-coercive decisions.
Abridging the liberty to use drugs robs us of the ability to act as moral agents. The potential to act immorally is necessary for morality to exist. No government should presume to override that freedom that God did not take away.
If the government can’t stop drug use in highly controlled prisons – where the worst drug problems exist – there’s no chance in a relatively free society such as ours. Its attempts increase drug prices, thereby making drug trafficking profitable and breeding crime.
With every Drug Enforcement Administration crackdown, the costs of trading drugs due to the risks of incarceration rise, pushing up prices and profitability. Such increased prices manifest themselves regressively and violently. The lowest classes feel the brunt of the war on drugs as high prices drive poor addicts into lives of crime to subsidize their “fix.” Addicts get lost in pernicous cycles of pharmacological dependence and crime that quickly lead either to prison or death. Repealing prohibition to lower drug prices serve as their most realistic escape from such a fate.
Higher profits also transfer the drug trade from legitimate businessmen protected by legal institutions to organized crime. Intoxicant prohibition constitutes the impetus for both the Mafia and the street gangs that historically terrorized America’s less fortunate neighborhoods. The notion that prohibition quells crime is unfounded and dangerous.
I do not urge the use of addictive drugs. I believe in prohibiting drug usage for minors. For adults, however, drugs are victimless crimes and their prohibition causes more harm than good.
It is time that this country made room for murderers and rapists in our prisons and free non-violent drug users, who currently occupy 50 percent of U.S. prison space.
Although drug use may be an unmitigated evil without socially redeemable qualities, the United States must stop conflating legal and moral issues. Citizens must make private decisions in the election booth and on the battlefield. Similarly, Americans must be trusted to decide what to put in their own bodies. Considering that no moral, consequentialist or constitutional basis exists for doing otherwise, this nation must legalize drugs.
