The War on Drugs

Lets face it. Everybody does drugs. Whether it is the exhausted teacher pouring him/herself a glass of wine when they get home from school, the workaholics who can only function with a black coffee first thing in the morning, the young child who has been convinced by a doctor to pop pills from six years old, the high school student smoking a joint before class, or the heroin addict shooting up on a dirty street corner. Mind altering substances have been around a long time, but somewhere along the line,  governments have decided that certain drugs should be legal, and others should not. In fact, they are so adamant about restricting the use of certain drugs that they will throw people in jail for their use.

The common justification for banning certain drugs is because they are harmful to the person who takes them and possibly even to those around them. But is this only the case for illegal drugs? Doesn't excess consumption of alcohol cause harm to the person who drinks it? Or how about when mixed with a fat dose of caffeine filled Red Bull? Studies show that mixing those two substances are likely to cause aggression and even sexual abuse yet this is a very common and legal drink in Universities and Colleges. There were more deaths from prescription drugs than heroin and cocaine combined in 2010. Both legal and illegal drugs can be addictive and dangerous. It is important to understand that any substance can be abused, even cheeseburgers. All kinds of drugs have ruined people's lives, so here is my proposal:

legalize all drugs.

Legalization does not necessarily mean agreeing that doing drugs is ethical, it simply changes the way in which society deals with the problem. We need this change in our approach because the war on drugs has been a total failure. It has created an international illegal drug trafficking industry, extremely violent gangs and cartels, police and government corruption (there is evidence that the CIA is involved in drug trafficking - check out investigative journalist Gary Webb and former DEA agent Cele Castillo), high health care costs, millions of people in prison, and a whole sect of people who grow up in an environment that causes violence, mental disability and many other issues (check out my first blog post to learn more about how environment effects people on a genetic level).

The war on drugs plays a role in poverty. Poor people get blamed for being lazy because they should "just get a job" but it should be no surprise that some of the poorest neighbourhoods have a high proportion of people selling drugs. It makes way more money than minimum wage. Poorer people often can only get minimum wage because they can't afford post secondary school, so they get stuck with a shitty job for the rest of their lives. Inequality and poverty are linked to substance abuse. If poor people are working, their job usually sucks and drugs are a way to feel good after a shitty day at work. When there are a lot of people in an area selling drugs, the profession gets passed down and the culture spreads. These people may get into a relationship and women get pregnant while they are doing drugs. Then babies are born addicted to drugs from the womb. This cycle repeats. You want to get people off of well-fare? Legalizing drugs could help. It is important to note that not only poor people do drugs, typically the poor sell and the rich consume. Examples are drug use on wall street and in the Canadian Tar Sands - both places where people make lots of money.

Instead of criminalizing people for substance abuse, people should be rehabilitated. There is some rehab access for addicts, but too often addicts people are thrown in jail where they can feed their addictions and when released, they will likely just end up back behind bars within a few months. Addicts need support, not punishment. Substance abuse should be a public health issue, not a criminal one. No drug in itself is addictive, people are only susceptible to addiction. Many people who have done heroin, have not become addicts, but some have. The Canadian genius, socio-biologist Gabor Mate points out that the important question for understanding addiction is not why the addiction, but why the susceptibility? Susceptibility is not because of genetic predisposition, but because of environmental factors. For example, most heroin addicts have been neglected or abused by their parents and have not experienced love and affection. This means that the stimulant dopamine has not been triggered in their brain. Heroin gives people a huge hit of dopamine into their brains that they lacked otherwise. Suddenly these people feel normal for the first time in their lives, so of course they will want to and in fact, need to repetitively use this substance. Instead of throwing these sick people in a degrading six by eight cell, these people should be rehabilitated. These people need love, compassion, care, friendship, and someone to talk to. If we were to successfully treat the people who become addicted to drugs such as heroin, there would be less demand for the substance, which would mean there would be less organized crime. For those anti-gun types, less drug trade = less organized crime = less need for guns! Even better, if we were to prevent the circumstances that lead to neglect and physical abuse, namely poverty, then we could limit the amount of people who become susceptible to these addictions in the first place!

Once legalized, the most important thing to do is to educate people about drugs. I don't mean the weird ass drug "education" my generation got, but a program that explains, how a drug effects you, what it looks like, how to do it safely, what environments to avoid, where to get rehab etc. If you think that this is the wrong approach, think about what has happened with sexual education. More sex ed. and access to contraceptives resulted in less teen pregnancy. The same kind of education and access is vital for drugs if we want a healthier, safer society. More education - less over doses. More education - less people taking laced drugs or accidentally smoking crack when they wanted to smoke weed.

Furthermore, legalization could save money. Less demand for drugs would lead to less powerful criminals and this would likely lead to less political corruption. More education would lead to less addicts and lower health care costs. Spending would have to be high for rehabilitation clinics, but in a few years, those costs would subside. Prison populations could be cut by a significant portion and this would save money immediately. To keep one prisoner incarcerated in California it costs $47,102 dollars per year.  Imagine how much money would be saved when millions of people are released from jail for drug related charges. Imagine how many less murders there would be among gangs and police. Imagine how much less congestion there would be in courts. The government would not need to spend as much money on the DEA, police, border patrol etc. If you still don't agree, look at Portugal as an example. They have legalized all drugs, and drug use has gone down significantly. Also notable is Vancouver's Insite program where heroin addicts are given clean needles to inject heroin to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. For more info on the costs of the war on drugs I would recommend reading this.

Every person has the sovereign right to chose what they do to their body. This includes using drugs. It doesn't matter what anyone's ethical ideas about drugs are because when it comes down to it, individuals will ingest what they want into their body regardless of what some oddly dressed judge says. Some drugs have been used for thousands of years. There is evidence that the ancient egyptians used psychedelics. There is even a theory that psychedelics helped humans evolve into another stage of evolution. It is nonsensical that naturally occurring substances like magic mushrooms, peyote, ayahuasca and marijuana are illegal. These drugs are still used today in native spiritual ceremonies. Many people have had positive experiences with these drugs; spiritually and even to cure addictions. Some people have what is called a "bad trip" but this is often caused by doing the drug in a bad environment. Psychedelics are not about getting wasted, they are an exploration of one's consciousness. The way that one explores their own consciousness should be everybody's right and the government has no right to dictate how or if that is done. Some people explore their consciousness through dance, chanting, song, yoga, and some people use psychedelics. With adequate education about these substances, people will be able to chose more sensibly how or if they want to explore their own consciousness.

If we decide to legalize drugs and treat addiction as a public health issue, there are a few powerful opponents that will resist this change. The pharmaceutical industry, the private prison industry, and their friends in government will and do lobby against legalization because they profit from certain drugs staying illegal. That is why it is important to have conversations with people about this topic and spread knowledge from person to person.

If you still have an ethical problem with legalizing drugs, you must accept that drugs will always be used. Banning the substances has clearly not worked. Ask yourself, if heroin were legal tomorrow, would you use it?

I believe that the best way to deal with this situation is educate everybody about these substances and help those who abuse them.

Legalizing drugs would help solve a whole array of problems but it is just one step of many towards a more sane society.



Don't believe some random blogger, do your own research! The best resources I have found for learning about both legal and illegal drugs and the war on drugs are the following:

Documentaries: The American Drug War, The Union, Bloods and Crips: Made in America, Big Bucks, Big Pharma, Marketing Disease and Pushing Drugs, Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging, Cocaine Cowboys, Breaking the Taboo, Shamanism: Other Worlds.

Movies: Scarface, Gommorah, City of God. 

Notable People: Gabor Mate, Michael Ruppert, Gary Webb, Cele Castillo, Graham Hancock. 

Music: Immortal Technique - Peruvian Coke, Big L - Street Struck, Dead Prez - Overdose, Curtis Mayfield - Freddie's Dead, Ice Cube - The Nigga Trap, KRS-One - Illegal Business, Cypress Hill - Pigs, Modest Mouse - The Good Times are Killing Me, System of a Down - Prison Song