Government excels at messing things up and then, in the name of fixing the problem that it created, creating more problems. This at least is how things look from the perspective of someone who desires advancement of liberty, safety, and welfare. For many politicians and special interests, priorities often are otherwise.
The war on drugs has produced an immense growth in the power of government and, along with that, much wealth for individuals— inside and outside government — profiting from the war that continues to be fought despite its decades long and counting record of loss for the drug warriors. There is much profit, along with misery, in this war.
One common defense of the drug war is that something must be done to protect the drug users. If only the flow of drugs can be limited or even stopped, lives can be saved. So the argument goes. But, the reality is that the drug war ends up harming drug users. The harm to drug users, as I explained in an October of 2017 article, includes raising the prices of drugs so drug users are less able to handle other expenses, exposing drug users to threats to safety that come with interactions on the black market, violating drug users’ rights through drug war enforcement, and subjecting drug users to drugs made more unpredictable and dangerous due to prohibition.
A particular problem for drug users that the drug war exacerbates is overdoses. The way to counter this harm, along with the others, I wrote, is to reverse course — legalize drugs:
What, then, would help ensure that illegal drug users are less likely to experience harmful and even fatal overdoses? Legalization fits that bill. With legalization, people could buy their drugs from established businesses that have a strong interest in maintaining a good reputation, can be sued for fraud and other wrongful acts, receive their drugs through regular supply chains not interrupted by government interdiction efforts, and sell drugs that are of consistent quality and thus have much more predictable effects when consumed.
Overdoses should, thus, be much less frequent after legalization. And, when overdoses do happen, drug users, and any people who are with them at the time of an overdose, should be much more willing to seek medical help given that the government threats of punishments — including arrest, incarceration, and property seizure — for possessing drugs would be gone. This greater inclination to seek help in dealing with overdoses should reduce the damage and fatalities from overdoses.
Unfortunately, instead of legalizing drugs, government is ramping up the drug war in response to overdoses and resulting deaths. One aspect of this ramping up is the prosecution of drug suppliers for the deaths of the people to whom they sold or gave drugs on the black market.
Jacob Sullum, in a new Reason article, provides an illuminating analysis of why this escalation of the drug war, like others before it, is detrimental to the drug users that the drug war is proclaimed to benefit. Key to his analysis is the drug war having made drugs more dangerous. Concluding his article, Sullum advises:
If Americans truly demanded accountability from “those responsible” for drug-related deaths, they would start with the politicians and law enforcement officials who are perversely committed to making drug use as dangerous as possible.
Hear! Hear! Reject the self-serving power expansion embodied in these prosecutions and demand that that the government withdraw from its detrimental war on drugs.
