Joel Schwartz Schwartz abhors what you have to
say but will fight for your right to say it. E-mail him at
jschwartz@media.ucla.edu.
Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, speed, LSD and crack invade
the lives of our parents, teachers, officials, children and even
clergy. I’m not preaching a la Nancy Reagan about the
terrible societal dangers of drugs, but am merely pointing out a
fact. Most likely, at least one person you know and respect has
done an illegal drug, and the harm that we cause to society by
fighting a losing and idiotic drug war far exceeds the damage that
would persist if we legalized drugs. It is therefore quite ironic
that those items that are chaotically being distributed throughout
the United States are officially labeled “controlled
substances” by our government.
The economic argument in favor of legalization is simple. If
there is high demand for a product, and if the supply is not being
provided by legal means, people will create alternate methods to
acquire what they want, and prices will skyrocket. The result of
our socialistic drug policy is the creation of a black market that
can manufacture drugs for a small price and sell at any profit they
want. This is the way that evil people like Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban gain wealth and power. The prohibition movement of the
1920s literally created bootlegging. It is a shame that the U.S.
government failed to learn that Al Capone could not have built his
empire of horror without prohibition to fund his activities.
But the massive drug cartels of today (spawned from the Drug
War) could not operate without an ample supply of workers.
Unfortunately, the only people willing to do illegal and
potentially dangerous work are those in horrid circumstances. They
are those who have failed to gain life skills due to terrible
schooling, those without role models and who are stuck in the
neverending cycle of welfare. They are the young adults of our
inner cities. Is it any surprise that the easy wealth that has been
made possible by our drug laws rid these poor people of any
incentive to better their socioeconomic circumstance? And of course
such a dangerous game fosters a need for protection and grouping.
And so we can blame today’s gang problem on drug war
stupidity as well.
Yet there is one more group that is affected by drug war idiocy,
and this is the most tragic of them all. As long as the drug trade
is confined to the bowels of the black market, there can be no type
of legal or market control. As a result, the producers target the
most malleable members of society to be customers and distributors:
our children.
How many can honestly say that it was easier to obtain a beer at
a bar than a marijuana cigarette while they were in high school?
Bars and convenience stores are subject to specific market
controls, namely they can lose their license to sell tobacco or
alcohol and therefore a substantial amount of income by selling to
minors. In addition, the good citizens of any township would likely
take their business elsewhere if it were to be discovered that
their favorite quick stop was engaged in these shady activities.
Although it does happen, the fact that tobacco and alcohol are
legal drugs assures that children are not targeted customers.
Granted, legalizing drugs might lead to more addiction and drug
related deaths and violence. However, countries such as Holland and
Portugal have actually lowered levels of drug abuse after
legalization. And by fighting this losing war, gangs and drug
related crimes more than make up for the loss of life that would be
associated with legalization.
Besides these supposedly obvious economic factors, there also
exists a moral argument. Mark Twain summed it up the best:
“Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If
I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If
I choose injudiciously, does the State die?” Twain is taking
the doctrine of abortion rights to its logical conclusion. If we
are to give people full domain over their own bodies, as is the
case with abortion, then we should also allow a person decide what
to do with their own body. The brand of socialist thinking that
allows Big Brother to dictate what we can put into our own bodies
is the same thinking that leads to complete control over the
individual. The next step is to disallow “immoral”
sexual activity, “immoral” buying and selling of
products arbitrarily chosen, and ultimately “immoral”
thought and speech.
The hatred of personal sovereignty as evidenced by conservatives
who perpetuate drug war misery, as well as self-pronounced liberals
who show signs of fascism by attacking the tobacco industry, must
be curtailed if we are to continue living in a free society. Our
lives and ultimately our freedom are the only real targets and
casualties of this disgusting Drug War.