The Folly of The Government’s "War on Drugs"

Introduction

To many the idea of overturning the laws prohibiting various plants and substances known as “illicit drugs” would be sheer lunacy.

The mere suggestion that marijuana be legalized, let alone harder drugs like heroin or cocaine would be a sign to many of the degeneracy of our society.

Also, I understand that some of my Christian brethren are not entirely used to hearing a theologically-conservative Christian question the “war on drugs”.

And yet the litmus test of the negative effect of these plants and substances on society is NOT  their legal status, but instead how they are enslaving people and wrecking their lives. And the reality is that laws against drugs at the best have allowed these problems to flourish, at the worst have made them exponentially worse. A question which I ponder but will not answer here is:  Why do people so tenaciously hang on to drug laws when they have done so little for the cause against drugs?

Before I continue, I wish to refer to the great Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises, who said the following about drugs and other potentially dangerous substances:

“No words need be wasted over the fact that all these narcotics are harmful. The question whether even a small quantity of alcohol is harmful or whether the harm results only from the abuse of alcoholic beverages is not at issue here. It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora’s box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.”

Three Nuances

It is my observation that the people who are most gung-ho about the government’s “war on drugs” have ignored at least three nuances which are very critical to this matter:

1. The difference between a vice and a crime.
2. The difference between condoning an activity and advocating its legality.
3. The difference between the mere presence of enforcement and actual prevention.

Unfortunately, there is a basic inability or perhaps purposeful desire to not understand
these nuances.

Nuance #1 (Vices vs. Crimes)

Ignoring #1 is the ideological foundation of all Nanny States. When criminal law
turns vices into crime, things get foul very quickly. As Lysander Spooner noted, “Crimes
are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another”. He then went on
to show how “Vices are simply the errors which man makes in his search after his own
happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice towards others, and no interference with
their persons or property”. He then goes on to conclude that

“For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth”

The state does not throw adulterers into jail, and yet the adulterer is actually
violating a covenant (or contract) with their spouse. Then why should it throw those in jail whose only offense is against their own body? Drug abuse should be seen as a vice, not a crime.

Nuance #2 (Condoning Use/Abuse vs. Condoning  Legalization)

The most insideous aspect of ignoring nuance #2 is the way it reframes the discussion
in an impossible and ridiculous way. Since the distinction between condoning something
and legalizing it is ignored, of course those of us who support legalization are
falsely portrayed as “advocates of vice”. Since the vast majority of people see drugs,
in some sense, as being dangerous, being an “advocate of drugs” is a losing position in
the public square.  However, wanting something to be legal is NOT the same as condoning it.
And yes, it is possible to be “ridiculously anti-drug” (in the words of Office Space) and yet
be against the state enforcement of laws against drugs.

My stance against drug abuse is by no way decimated or called into question by my opposition to prohibition. In fact, the governments “war on drugs” and the laws it entails are in reality more
“friendly” towards the drug cartels and pushers than they are to those citizens concerned with
the drug problem. Those who want to see less of a drug problem” should, for the sake of their
cause, call on the government to withdraw from the “war on drugs”, for the “war on drugs” has at the best not slowed down the explosion of the drug problem and at worst caused it.

Implicit in the ignorance of this particular nuance is the assumption that the government
“war on drugs” is the only way to try to combat the ill social effects of drugs. It blindly
assumes that anyone who opposes coercive, statist government efforts would propose no other
voluntary methods, such as voluntary organizations, churches, non-coercive campaigns,
education, etc.

My plea to those in favor of the government “war on drugs” is to stop ignoring this nuance.
When you misrepresent pro-legalization people by assuming their advocate drugs, you are being intellectually dishonest. Being against throwing people in prison for drugs no more makes one pro-drugs than being against throwing adulterers into jail makes one pro-adultery. There are many ways to address social problems, and the violence of the state is not the only one.

Nuance #3 (Enforcement vs. Prevention)

By ignoring nuance #3, many errors are also made. The drug laws and the “war on drugs” are put forward as the “finger that stops them dam”. Stop the war on drugs, the reasoning goes, and
the floodgates of drug abuse and societal problems will come forward. But, in reality, that is
not evident. The evidence suggests that at best, these laws things are a poor restraint and have
a very marginal restraining impact on the overall existence of drug abuse. At worst, these laws
are actually making the problem worse. There is, within the evidence, some room to dispute over whether the best or worse case scenario would be true. However, the evidence gives us no room to suggest that the “war on drugs” and the drug laws are having any major success is
stopping or restraining the societal problem of drug abuse. Sure, there have been minor
improvements and shifts from one drug to another as supply changes due to raids, but nothing
permanent or worth writing home about.

For instance, the war on drugs has been a factor (if not the sole cause) of a 50-fold increase
in the price of cocaine. This has undoutedly resulted in making it more enticing from the

perspective of pushers, and certainly has driven more users/addicts to more overtly criminal acts in order to obtain the drug. And, if this increased price has discouraged some users, they most certainly found other, cheaper drugs to consume. Governments do tend to brag about a decrease in cocaine use, but where the rubber meets the road is what we are hearing from the hospitals–they are telling us that over the past 8 years, cocaine overdose cases have quadrupled.

Quite frankly, it appears that in many cases the “cure” is much more harmful than the problem  in the first place. For instance, what has a more likely to have a problematic impact on a kids future: experimentation with or selling of marijuana, or being locked up in a prison  for 10 years?

Some Concluding Thoughts

Although the drug legalization movement has had some very limited successes, due to many factors including the societal climate, the dominance of the “Nanny State”, and the heavy bureaucratic machinery of the drug war, the government’s war on drugs is unlikely to end any time soon. So for the time being, we will see that in the name of “protecting” us from vices, our governments will violate liberties and crowd prisons with people serving inordinately long sentences for either abusing a substance or trying to sell it on the market. And while they do that, the governments will spend themselves into debt during already shaky economic times and conversely they will continue to make drug dealing a particularly lucrative business, and generally make the problem worse.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840:

“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance.  It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

This is not intended to be any sort of comprehensive treatise, and many others are far more educated on the subject and can provide more “linking” facts.  But this will at least introduce the topic, I think, and lay some groundwork for understanding this issue more precisely.

Recommended Readings