Why Drugs Should Be Legalized- Part I

The comments from my previous post on drugs have made it crystal clear that it's time for yet another addition of my "legalize drugs!" posts. Drugs are a watermark issue for myself and for most libertarians, not because we want to smoke pot and shoot heroin, but because it's an issue of government control over our freedom of choice and because hundreds of billion of drug enforcement tax dollars are wasted each year, accomplishing nothing.

Before getting into the why, I'd like to take a minute to talk about the law in general from a philosophical standpoint. Regardless of your opinion as to the proper role of government, I'm sure we can all agree that when the government does take action- particularly action designed to restrict one's freedom- that action should be based upon logic and reason. If a law attempts to combat a perceived evil, the law should be tailored toward combating that evil- Or in other words the response should be proportionate to the infraction.

Our system of drug laws is twisted from the get go when you consider the disparate treatment of marijuana and alcohol. It's not science that separates the legal treatment of these two drugs, but tradition, which is a poor excuse for restricting freedom. By implication, the treatment of these two widely used drugs should make you question the assumptions implicit in all drug laws. If the government's policy on various drugs is based upon some calculation of risk, and the government gets the relative risk factors of marijuana and alcohol so wrong, then why should we assume the government's calculations of the risk factors of other illegal drugs are any more accurate?

The argument for prohibition of certain drugs is based not upon science, but on perceptions of danger and risk factors. Some of these perceptions stem from decades of prohibition and some stem from portrayals in the media. But regardless of where these perceptions come from, my only request to anyone consider the issue is that they come at it from an open mind. TV shows are not science. Second hand stories are not science. Knowing someone- or many people- who've had a problem with cocaine shouldn't be any different than knowing someone who's had a problem with alcohol. Yes people have problems with drugs, but statistics about danger and risk factors based upon first hand and media accounts is not science.

Rather than make this post too monstrous, I'm going to divide the drug legalization issue into several different posts. This one here is a basic introduction, a plea to approach the issue free of prejudice. The next post will be on the individual's right to make decisions about one's own body, the third will be about the failure of the war on drugs, and the last will question the drug narrative itself. Enjoy.