Electoral issue: drug use

“Human cultures vary widely in the plants they use to gratify the desire for a change of mind, but all cultures... sanction at least one such plant and, just as invariably, strenuously forbid certain others. Along with the temptation seems to come the taboo.” — Michael Pollan, Botany of Desire

The question: Are you in favor of decriminalizing drug use?

Yes.

Before proceeding, I recommend taking a few minutes to watch School of Life's video "How to Use Drugs".  While it makes a strong case for a liberal attitude toward drug use, it employs an overgeneralized notion of what a drug is and fails to overcome prejudices against certain drugs.  Most of the posts I write are numberical, but this argument will be primarily philosophical.  There is evidence to believe prohibition does more harm than good, but my answer to this question is more a case against legislating cultural hegemony.

A drug is an external physical resource that intervenes directly in the brain to create benign and positive states of mind.  People use drugs of different kinds to experience different states of mind: alcohol to experience lowered inhibitions, nicotine to experience relaxation, caffeine to experience stimulation, cannabis to experience ataraxia, heroin to experience euphoria, LSD to experience hallucinations, etc.  All of these can—when used properly—create these positive states of mind.  It is abuse of drugs that leads to detrimental, addictive behaviors.

Laws—and therefore crimes—depend on the mores of the society they belong to.  Drug prohibition in the United States eventually became law due to increasing desire to regulate pharmaceuticals.  While wester civilization has a long standing history of alcohol consumption, over 450 years of tobacco smoking, and over 350 years of coffee drinking, other drugs were used largely for medicinal applications.  Heroin—like other opiates—cocaine and marijuana have historically been used for pain management.  Recreational use of these—and other—drugs was popular in other societies, and within subcultures of our own society, but have been subject to marginalization and stigmatization.  Consider the popular image of heroin users as hopelessly dependent on the substance from their first use.  In reality, 86% of heroin users will not develop an addiction, one in five of whom have been regular users.

There are also social costs of criminalizing drug use.  Over 48,000 prisoners in the United States are in prison for drug possession, while over 208,000 are in prison for all drug-related offenses.  Of these prisoners, 67% will be rearrested within three years of their initial release: 80% for non-violent offenses, but 20% for violent offenses.  The question of decriminalizing is, essentially, about whether we respect our citizens' rights to autonomy of their own minds and bodies.  Decriminalization will be the first step in achieving such a society, but the goal should be for the eventual legalization of drugs.

Electoral issue: military spending.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower 

The question: Should the government decrease military spending?

Yes.

While the United States has, arguably, the most powerful military in the world, it undoubtedly has the largest military budget in the world, larger than the next ten largest spenders on military in the world combined.  However, is this level of expenditure necessary?  To answer this question, I’ve collected data that compares the degree of militarization to the human development index and to the global terrorism index.  Of course, correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing "look over there."  The data can be found in this spreadsheet.

In general, the data seems to indicate that the size of the both the size and relative strength of a military is only weakly correlated with higher levels of development, but this correlates moderately to greater prevalence of terrorist activity.  Consider, for example, the chart to the left.  It shows the global peace index vs. the human development index.  These two values have a correlation of −57%—noting that a smaller GPI indicates a more peaceful nation.  This seems to be expected, however, the peace index also takes into account the degree of militarization.  All this taken together, seems to suggest that there is some link between a lesser degree of militarization and a greater degree of prosperity.

This being said, what degree of demilitarization would be appropriate?  As a member of NATO, it is suggested that the United States puts 2% of its GDP towards military expenditures, which would amount to $358 billion.  Instead, the United States spends approximately $598 billion—based on 2015 figures—on its military.  If this recommendation was followed, the government would have $240 billion dollars to fund other programs, yet would still be two-and-a-half times as much as the second highest military spender—China—and more than the next four highest spenders combined.

Downsizing would neither be difficult, nor would it sacrifice the United States position as one of the strongest militaries in the world.  Simply spending at the NATO recommendation would represent approximately a 40% decrease.  A 40% decrease in the number of active military would imply a force of 890 thousand people—still the 4th largest in the world, and more congruent with our rank in population.  A similar decrease in the military equipment would imply: 6 aircraft carriers (1st) and 97 other warships, 3,580 tanks (2nd), 2,280 combat aircraft (1st), 4,200 nuclear warheads (2nd), etc.

This list almost indicates the absurdity of our level of spending, as a 40% doesn't actually affect our standing in any of these areas.  Meanwhile, there are other programs that are in great need of funding.  For example, the often cited ASCE estimate that $3.6 trillion is needed to improve our national infrastructure by 2020.  By downsizing our military, the government stands to save hundreds of billions of dollars, without negatively impacting our national security or our military strength.