Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The most amazing thing about the “war on drugs” is the fact that many from both the conservative and liberal arenas agree with it. They shouldn’t. The ban of “drugs” has utterly failed and should be abolished for the following reasons:

1. The ban is an over-extension of state jurisdiction

It is not the States responsibility to protect you from your own stupidity. You want to do crack? Go ahead. You want to eat lots and lots of chocolate cake? Go ahead. This is America, where you can pig out, even when it hurts you. That’s part of liberty – the ability to make decisions which can burn you.

2. The ban destroys lives

Sure drugs can destroy a lot of lives. But making the drugs illegal makes it worse. A crack fix should cost five bucks for a day. Now it costs hundreds in some places. When someone is addicted to something, the price of it is of no consequence to their decision to consume it. They are addicted. This is a leading cause of homelessness – the ban has destroyed everything they had.

3. The ban violates liberty

I am a firm believer in liberty, as I am sure other people are. What is liberty? Jefferson defined it when he said:

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

Remember, it is wrong to violate one’s liberty when one has not violated the rights of others. For example, I should not be able to come to your house stuff you in the washing machine and leave you there. You should not be randomly arrested and forced into prison for no reason. The reasoning for this moral prohibition is found in the concept of liberty.

It is a blatant violation of liberty to lock someone up in a cage (read: send to prison) because they smoked a joint. That is ridiculous, it is of a totalitarian nature, and should be rejected because of the immorality of it and of its complete un-American nature. To lock someone up in a cage when they have not encroached upon no one else is morally bankrupt.

4. The ban is a double-standard

Double-standards will exist until we ban alcohol, sharpies, tobacco, chocolate cake, and sugar. There is no reason to lock someone up in a cage because they tried pot when we wouldn't do it to them if they tried alcohol. The only reason that people think that “illegal drugs are different” is because they have become indoctrinated by their culture. The reason? They aren't different. And we have no reason to think otherwise.

If we shouldn’t ban sharpies, we shouldn’t ban other substances. If we shouldn’t ban cake, we shouldn’t ban other substances. If we shouldn’t ban tobacco, we shouldn’t ban other substances. If we shouldn’t ban alcohol, we shouldn’t ban other substances. If we shouldn’t… continue ad infinitum.

Real people are infringed upon by this policy that we call “The War on Drugs.” Real lives have been destroyed. Morality has been violated. The policy is bankrupt; the policy must be ended.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great points! (I may be "stealing" some of your reasoning to use in a discussion on a proposed smoking ban) :)

John Doe said...

Awesome! Feel free to use any of the points. :D

Anonymous said...

I think the ban on "drugs" is horribly vague and a methedalogically poor assessment of the situation.

I think some drugs (e.g. marijuana) should likely be legalized, and others (e.g. lsd) should.

As to the "destroying lives" point, if you're not addcited yet, you're much more likely to be so if it costs $95 bucks less in the first place. I think it probably cancels out.