The dangers of the War on Drugs has been a long-running theme here at Common Sense with Paul Jacob. And some times it is incumbent upon us to note that the drugs governments prohibit are often not as dangerous as proclaimed.
But no drug lacks dangers.
Indeed, for the past three years, the main Dangerous Drug theme has been a government-approved, government-subsidized, government-mandated drug, “the vax.”
With the rise of homelessness and simultaneous rise of drug de-criminalization in many states, the recreational drug issue has come back. And some people have taken the drum beat of old-timey Progressive Era drug alarmism, as reported by Jacob Sullum, Reason, “Because ‘Marijuana Is Dangerous,’ Inveterate Drug Warriors Say, ‘Legalizing It Was a Mistake’” (March 15, 2024):
Barr and Walters complain that marijuana legalization has “created the false perception that the drug is ‘safe.’” They think refuting that false perception is enough to justify a return to prohibition. Because “marijuana is dangerous,“ they say, “legalizing it was a mistake.” But the question is not whether marijuana is “safe”; it is whether marijuana’s hazards justify the use of force to stop people from consuming it. Barr and Walters fail to seriously grapple with that question even in utilitarian terms, and they completely ignore moral objections to criminalizing conduct that violates no one’s rights.
We will no doubt be talking about this issue a lot more in the months and years to come, especially if teetotaling Donald Trump returns to office.
1 reply on “Dangerous Drugs, Dangerous Wars on Drugs”
In the cases of Messrs Barr and Walters, we have political scientists doing a poor job of implicitly posturing as economists.
I’ve been a teetotaller from well before I became an adult, and for virtually my whole adult life have been an unflinching advocate of the proposition that adults have a right to take psychotropics until and unless they abandon that right voluntarily.