Many countries allow limited access to recreational drugs and their societies have not collapsed. Some countries hardly regulate drugs and alcohol at all and we may say those countries are lawless, but no countries have evident, systemic problems related to unregulated, open and conspicuous drug and alcohol use.
We all freely admit that it is very easy for some people to find illegal drugs in the USA which makes it difficult to argue our laws against recreational drug use have any effect on society beyond astronomical costs to taxpayers. No reasonable people are arguing to make drugs MORE illegal. It is time to talk about making them less illegal.
Drug addiction can destroy families as well as individuals and the laws we have are not helping those families. The war on drugs also has untold victims and costs to all of us even if we don’t use drugs. Families are torn apart when our relations are imprisoned and every sector of society has those who avoid authorities because of their own drug use or the drug use of someone close to them. Racism and bigotry is tied to drug use because “they” use drugs but not “us” so all of “them” are bad, a very common racist motif. International relations and immigration are complicated because families all over the world are accused and generalized as drug smugglers because drug smugglers bring drugs to the USA from every other country.
The war on drugs has NOT limited the availability of illegal drugs in the US. We all know we are losing a very expensive war. Moreover most of us can admit that our efforts to criminalize drug use have not curtailed addictions, eliminated overdoses or stopped other drug related damage to society. It can be easily shown that restricting access to drugs legally will do much more to limit the availability of drugs than to pass a law that too many people ignore. If we register drug users we will do much better than if we continue to imprison drug users.
I am not advocating drug use. I am advocating a libertarian attitude toward drug use. I do not know more than you what drugs you or anyone else should take. I don’t believe any medical doctor has that sort of knowledge either. Beyond the effects of drugs, and their dosages, which anyone can find from multiple sources these days, a doctor does not have any other magic information. I believe any person can study and learn and live with and some might say benefit from occasional recreational drug use. Although I believe medical doctors and the science of medicine can tell people a lot about drugs and their effects I do not believe the medical profession should have a monopoly on the right people have to treat and use their own bodies.
We need to re-examine making criminals of recreational drug users. And we also need to re-examine the underlying reasons for the war on drugs. Logic and science tell us that alcohol and marijuana and aspirin as well as lots of herbal remedies and over-the-counter drugs are as dangerous in many ways as illegal drugs. Although is it true that opiates are more addictive than alcohol most other common and/or popular drugs do not cause a physical dependency. The main danger to oneself or others with non-opioid abuse is strange behavior and/or overdose or psychological dependence.
Our government is NOT the only or the best way to regulate drug use. But the government war on drugs makes our government very expensive with policing and imprisoning illegal drug users.
People pay a lot of money and take huge legal risks to obtain and use recreational drugs. Families are the main line of defense against addiction, not the government. It is the family that can reach an addict much better than police or our educational systems mostly because an illegal drug user will avoid authorities to avoid prison. But even without a family to reach our addicts, prison is the worst solution available to get help to a non-violent drug addict.
Since the beginning of humanity people have used drugs of all kinds for all kinds of purposes. In the case of the war on drugs in the US we are talking about SOME kinds of drugs that are used recreationally, like alcohol and marijuana. And what I want to propose is that all drugs can be useful for lots of reasons, and there is no reason any more for full scale war on drugs.
