Drug and Slavery Prohibition

One friend shared with me an excellent essay against prohibition and in favor of drug legalization based on individual rights. The essay is called “America’s Unjust Drug War” and was written by Michael Huemer in The New Prohibition, in 2004. Here is a brief summary.

Huemer criticizes two of the arguments that prohibitionists defend and explains one that is very strongly in favor of legalization.

The first argument of those who defend drug prohibition is that drugs should be prohibited because they are harmful to those who consume them, and they believe their prohibition will consequently decrease the rate of drug misuse. By the way, Huemer does not say anything about this, but drug consumption was legalized in Portugal and there has been no evidence of increased consumption since its legalization. But returning to the argument of those who defend prohibition because drugs do harm, people forget that it is not the responsibility of the government to help people not do harm to themselves. If this were government’s responsibility, then alcohol, riding motorbikes, reading bad books, being obese, misusing credit cards, dropping studies, riding horses, doing extreme sports — an infinity of actions we face every day — should be prohibited as well. It is unjust that one person ends up in prison for doing things that could harm their own life.

The second argument for those who defend drug prohibition is that drugs harm people other than the user. Here, the argument is easier. Anyone who consumes drugs — whether alcohol or any other substance — does it freely and voluntarily, and so if someone harms others under the influence of drugs, this person must be responsible for the consequences and damages that may arise. Drug consumption should not be penalized or criminalized, and neither should getting drunk. What should be penalized is harming others, no matter what influence you are under. If someone drives or operates machinery under the influence of alcohol and harms property or people, this person must take responsibility for that. Same happens with drugs. It is important to separate the facts from fiction. One can harm others without being drunk or stoned; either way, the person must take responsibility for the damage caused. Therefore, the argument for prohibition fails and is not justified.

There are people who go further and say that the drug user harms his family with indifferent attitudes and careless character. But there are still many people that have those characteristics without consuming drugs, and it is not just imprisonment for that. There is no valid argument, because there are many ways to harm a family, and why should we criminalize one and not the others? How could this be justified?

However, the argument for everyone who defends legalization is the moral issue. As Huemer says, “If we are to retain some sort of respect for human rights, we cannot deploy force to deprive people of their liberty and property for whimsical reasons.” People have fundamental rights to life, liberty and property. The U.S. Constitution ensures fundamental individual rights, but these are being constantly violated by the war against drugs, which has had more than 450,000 people unfairly imprisoned on drug convictions since 2004.

Defending drug legalization is defending individual rights. One of the most basic fundamental rights is being violated, and that is the right to life. I would like to sum up with a harsh quote from Huemer: “The harm of being unjustly imprisoned is qualitatively comparable to the harm of being enslaved.”