“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?
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.
These drugs were available to the public many, many decades ago. However, they were given out via pharmacies and doctors. I can understand the monetary value of legalization, but the cost of medical care for those who do become addicted and the cost in human life through drug running and gang/cartels should also be considered. There is a lot of money and medical resources that try to prevent people from dying of heroin overdose right now.
ReplyDeleteSo if we do de-criminalize, I say we push these drugs to the pharmacies and doctor supervision ONLY. Non-supervised or recreational use of some of these drugs could lead to death due to lack of experience or knowledge of the drug. Plus the sharing of needles can also lead to HIV and other contagious diseases. So we have to be careful about legalization, we can't let it just be rampant to reduce prison or legal costs.
Decriminalization of drug possession ignores production and distribution. Even if there were widespread decriminalization of drug use, authorities would likely still try to prevent traffickers from distributing drugs in the United States; however, legislation could also be used to establish regulations on the quality of products to ensure uniform purity and safety of drugs.
DeleteThese types of regulations exist for tobacco and coffee, for example, which cannot be covered in pesticides, because they might poison their human users. Marijuana is not subject to the same regulations. Many deaths attributed to heroin overdose are, in fact, reactions to other toxins in the drugs.
Also, it is not necessary that recreational use be unsupervised. When using drugs, many people have someone act as a spotter to ensure the safety of the users. When you go to a bar, the bartender will not—usually—allow patrons to drink until they are dangerously drunk. Expanded drug cultures should be expected to develop similar safety measures.