drug legalization
Post on 04-Jan-2016
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Drug Legalization
Arguments for legalizing drugs
Why drug laws should be repealed
Benefits Benefits of liberty
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
Drug users are agents Free Voluntary Informed
They don’t threaten rights of others Mill’s bridge: can only warn of danger
Critique of Government Action 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 Costs
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
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 Other harms
Corruption Violence Loss of respect for law (inconsistency)
Injustice “tyranny of the majority” racial profiling imprisoned African-Americans
Rates of imprisonment (100,000)
United States: 546 Georgia: 730 Texas: 700 Florida: 636 California: 607
Italy: 89 UK: 86 France: 84 Germany: 80 Holland: 51
Arguments for Drug Laws
Why we shouldn’t legalize drugs
Harms to Users
Drug laws succeed in discouraging use Legalization would increase harms to
users More use, including underage use More addiction More illnesses, overdoses, deaths Less recovery; treatment succeeds only
when compulsory
Harms to Others Associates of users: family, friends, co-
workers, customers, unborn Victims of users: victims of accidents,
violence, crime Everyone else: increased health care,
insurance costs, lost productivity
Voluntariness
Voluntariness (competence): Is an addict really exercising liberty? Voluntary slavery: Are we really “free not
to be free”? Analogy:
“give me your wallet or I’ll beat you up”— this is coercion, not freedom
But withdrawal may be worse than a beating
Knowledge Ignorance: Do drug users really have
enough information to make reasonable choices? Analogy: prescription drugs Drug education? Cognitive blindspot: Long-term
consequences
Communitarian Arguments
Offense to others Moral harm
Agent: “debases the soul” Others: bad example
Social cohesion (expectations)
Liberal Arguments
Exploitation: drug suppliers would be using users, profiting from their weakness Cf. Big tobacco, big alcohol, etc.
Support: insurance against weakness of will Lower v. higher-order desires: we may
want something we want not to want
Liberal Arguments
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)
Conservative Arguments
Character Drug use impedes character
development Society is not just for adults Laws must help mold children into
responsible adults
Conservative Arguments
Tradeoffs Other values are at stake: community,
virtue, productivity, prosperity, safety, etc.
Increasing liberty to use drugs could place these in jeopardy
Conservative Arguments 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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