Drugs

There's been something of a shift among progressive circles recently, and now many popular figures on the left are advocating for the abolition of prohibition. That is to say, they are in favor of the legalization, or at least the decriminalization, of all drugs. Their primary argument is that the cost of prohibition is exceedingly expensive, and that the sentencing laws for nonviolent drug offenses are so long as to ruin people's lives. And, near as I can tell, both of those things are objectively factual. Further, anti-prohibitionists claim that, by legalizing, taxing, and regulating substances, we would take power away from violent cartels and ensure that the substances circulating are safe and nonfatal.

Here  is a Web site which contains data about the drug war and determines that a progressive drug policy is the best fix for the problems outlined above.

The argument against is that drugs are not good for you. At least, that's one argument I hear from both the opposing left as well as the right. This is a bullshit argument, of course. Hamburgers are not good for you, should we criminalize those? If you want to criminalize something, you must take into account a whole lot more than whether it is or is not 'good for you,' whatever the fuck that even means. Snatching away and criminalizing everything that might possibly be bad for some segment of the population is, as outlined above, expensive as hell. It also needlessly ruins people's lives, and often ends up causing way more harm than it prevents.

Are there some drugs that are so harmful that they are worth the cost, both monetarily and otherwise, of criminalization? Perhaps. But the mere fact that something is unhealthy is not enough reason to ban it entirely.

Just something to think about.