While I've generally been in favor of drug legalization I've always felt that some drugs are too dangerous to legalize. These are the stimulants like cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, etc. This is because habitual use basically destroys the human body, resulting in brain damage, kidney failure, malnutrition, open skin sores, etc. If you'd like to see what I mean, look here.
I had thought that narcotics were a lesser danger and that legalization could lead to a tolerable situation, but as we've gained more experience with chronic narcotic use it is becoming clear that they are even more toxic than meth class drugs. It's just that it's a more subtle form of toxicity. What we didn't realize was that chronic narcotics sap a person's will to live, sap their energy, sap their ambition and turn them into blobs who sit around doing nothing day after day. Narcotics destroy their lives making them apathetic about personal relationships and responsibilities. We knew that narcotics are subject to a tolerance effect such that higher and higher doses are required to get the same high, but there was little realization that even with tolerance the effects on respiration can be just as bad. The result is overdose deaths, which have turned into an epidemic.
Some advocate legalizing everything and letting Darwin sort it all out. Those who are going to over-use drugs will die, so just let them die. The trouble with this is that history has shown that there is no upper bound to the proportion of the population that can end up addicted to narcotics. In some Chinese cities in the 1800s 80% of the population was smoking opiates and the economy in those places had ground almost completely to a stop. It was this that forced the Emperor to make opiate use punishable by death.
So, by all means, legalize the less dangerous drugs and turn all those non-violent drug offenders in prison loose. But some drugs need to remain restricted. If this means I'm not libertarian enough then so be it. I don't think that libertarianism has ever meant to advocate an absence of law and good order.
I had thought that narcotics were a lesser danger and that legalization could lead to a tolerable situation, but as we've gained more experience with chronic narcotic use it is becoming clear that they are even more toxic than meth class drugs. It's just that it's a more subtle form of toxicity. What we didn't realize was that chronic narcotics sap a person's will to live, sap their energy, sap their ambition and turn them into blobs who sit around doing nothing day after day. Narcotics destroy their lives making them apathetic about personal relationships and responsibilities. We knew that narcotics are subject to a tolerance effect such that higher and higher doses are required to get the same high, but there was little realization that even with tolerance the effects on respiration can be just as bad. The result is overdose deaths, which have turned into an epidemic.
Some advocate legalizing everything and letting Darwin sort it all out. Those who are going to over-use drugs will die, so just let them die. The trouble with this is that history has shown that there is no upper bound to the proportion of the population that can end up addicted to narcotics. In some Chinese cities in the 1800s 80% of the population was smoking opiates and the economy in those places had ground almost completely to a stop. It was this that forced the Emperor to make opiate use punishable by death.
So, by all means, legalize the less dangerous drugs and turn all those non-violent drug offenders in prison loose. But some drugs need to remain restricted. If this means I'm not libertarian enough then so be it. I don't think that libertarianism has ever meant to advocate an absence of law and good order.