Drug Legalization
Arguments for legalizing drugs
Why drug laws should be
repealed
Benefits
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Benefits of liberty
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Benefits from drug use (pleasure,
medicinal uses, social interaction)
Experiments in living benefit others who
learn from it
Limiting choices harms everyone by
limiting information
Liberty
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Drug users are agents
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Free
Voluntary
Informed
They don’t threaten rights of others
Mill’s bridge: can only warn of danger
Critique of Government Action
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You care most about your own good;
you have stronger incentive to protect
yourself than anyone else has to protect
you
You know most about your own good;
your choices are more likely to lead to
happiness than those anyone else
might select
Costs
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Costs
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Courts (case loads, costs, delays)
Police ($20 billion/year)
Prisons ($10 billion/year— 1/2 prison
population there for drug-related offenses)
Lost tax revenue: $10 billion/year
Increased Harms
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Enforcement is ineffective
Increased harms from drugs
 Switches to stronger, more easily
concealed drugs with higher profit
margins
 No controls on quality, strength,
contamination
 No information about reasonable use
Other Harms
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Other harms
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Corruption
Violence
Loss of respect for law (inconsistency)
Injustice
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“tyranny of the majority”
racial profiling
imprisoned African-Americans
Rates of imprisonment (100,000)
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United States: 546
 Georgia: 730
 Texas: 700
 Florida: 636
 California: 607
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Italy: 89
UK: 86
France: 84
Germany: 80
Holland: 51
Arguments for Drug Laws
Why we shouldn’t legalize drugs
Harms to Users
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Drug laws succeed in discouraging use
Legalization would increase harms to
users
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More use, including underage use
More addiction
More illnesses, overdoses, deaths
Less recovery; treatment succeeds only
when compulsory
Harms to Others
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Associates of users: family, friends, coworkers, customers, unborn
Victims of users: victims of accidents,
violence, crime
Everyone else: increased health care,
insurance costs, lost productivity
Voluntariness
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Voluntariness (competence): Is an
addict really exercising liberty?
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Voluntary slavery: Are we really “free not
to be free”?
Analogy:
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“give me your wallet or I’ll beat you up”— this
is coercion, not freedom
But withdrawal may be worse than a beating
Knowledge
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Ignorance: Do drug users really have
enough information to make reasonable
choices?
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Analogy: prescription drugs
Drug education?
Cognitive blindspot: Long-term
consequences
Communitarian Arguments
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Offense to others
Moral harm
 Agent: “debases the soul”
 Others: bad example
Social cohesion (expectations)
Liberal Arguments
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Exploitation: drug suppliers would be
using users, profiting from their
weakness
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Cf. Big tobacco, big alcohol, etc.
Support: insurance against weakness
of will
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Lower v. higher-order desires: we may
want something we want not to want
Liberal Arguments
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Risk
Some drugs may be so harmful that
it could never be reasonable to use
them
 Irrationality: we assume coercion,
incompetence, or ignorance (Mill’s
bridge)
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Conservative Arguments
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Character
Drug use impedes character
development
 Society is not just for adults
 Laws must help mold children into
responsible adults
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Conservative Arguments
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Tradeoffs
Other values are at stake: community,
virtue, productivity, prosperity, safety,
etc.
 Increasing liberty to use drugs could
place these in jeopardy
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Conservative Arguments
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Tradition
Long tradition of drug laws
 Society is complicated; we must find
best laws by experimenting over long
time
 Product of reasoned choices
 Good guide to human nature
 Can’t predict effects of legalization
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