Articles
We Respond to "Legalize Landmines!" · 2 January 07
Daniel McGill writes a response to Greg Reilly’s opposition columnist Adam Brickley. In Mr. Brickley’s article “Legalize Landmines!” he compares drugs to landmines and states that users of drugs are equivalent to walking bombs. Daniel agrees that drug use is dangerous but that is about all he agrees with.
Dear Editor,
Adam Brickley’s recent article titled “Legalize Landmines!” under the heading of “Should Hard Drugs be Legalized” is not only metaphorically verbose but inconsequential and patently false. Adam incorrectly assumes that drugs cause violence when it is more the case that black market economies and gangs cause violence. Our policy of drug prohibition has forced drug markets to carry out illegally, without regulation and at times violently. Under legalization we can not only better control who obtains drugs but also do a better job of educating the general public about its potential health hazards.
The anti-prohibition community’s plan to legalize these substances should not be construed as a wish to give better access to them. Rather it is a plan based around education, treatment, bringing drug abuse under control and limiting access to minors. It is also my hope that with the billions of dollars saved state and federal governments can better service the public who is most victimized by violent criminals not the person who partakes of a hard drug in the privacy of their home.
I will not argue against Adam’s belief that drugs are harmful and dangerous. I however argue against your belief that keeping them illegal is the best method of preventing their use and giving help to those who suffer from addiction. More than 20 years into the war on drugs and around 50 billion now spent annually on drug law enforcement and nothing has improved. What will it require? The drug war proved to be a failure long ago and it is the voting public’s responsibility to realize this and push for something different.
I openly invite a dialogue with anyone who is willing.
I agree there is much hypocrisy going on in the way we look at drugs and alcohol, but let me ask you this: do you guys endeavor to decriminalize ALL drugs?
While doing so might somewhat inhibit the violence caused by the black market, I think it would lead to a whole host of other problems. You would have hundreds of thousands of new addicts on your hands, who would now be justified in their usage (or so they would see it). Would you then have enough money saved to treat them all (if they consented to treatment)? Or do you stoop and plan on taxing drug sales?
And the fact is that drugs do make some people violent; not all, but quite a few, especially when they run out of money, lose their jobs, lose the respect of their friends and family, and get desperate. I think the violence you stop would be counterbalanced by the violence that would ensue decriminalization.
I work full-time with drug-addicts, and would tearfully point out that only a handful of those treated ever actually enter into real recovery, no matter how much money, love, and effort is put into them through the most ingenious programs. Decriminalizing drugs and pumping all the money into treatment is not the way to go. It would cause more ruin to society than it would prevent.
SPF
First off thank you for taking the time to post.
It seems that your comment makes a number of assumptions that are untrue. The first is that in a legalized drug environment there would be more users. From past studies and country statistics this seems to be untrue. It may bring the drug use more into the public eye but in the long run studies suggest usage goes down.
You assert that “the fact is that drugs do make some people violent; not all, but quite a few, especially when they run out of money, lose their jobs, lose the respect of their friends and family, and get desperate.” I will grant that many different types of drugs are bad and that with some drugs there is increased levels of negative emotions. The illegal status of the drugs however causes lots of these problems. Many very productive drug users lose their jobs because of employer drug testing. They may lose their family’s respect because they are forced to deal with black market forces for the drugs. They become impoverished because of a criminal record caused by being convicted of a drug charge. So although drug use causes a great deal of ills, the illegal nature of the drugs causes far more problems. I often hear of neighborhoods haunted by a meth lab and drug sales. If the drugs were legal the black market sales and production could almost entirely stopped and the neighborhood meth labs would become a feature of the past.
Next, no taxation of the drug market is necessary to fund these treatment programs. Currently we spend more than $50 billion at state and federal levels on the drug war. Additionally we spend more money on housing people on drug possession and use charges. We invest in foreign nations to increase their enforcement. Additionally we decrease our tax revenues by placing in prison otherwise productive citizens. The cost of a treatment and education program which Stop the Hypocrisy advocates would be far less than what is being spent on enforcement.
Lastly, it should be noted that Stop the Hypocrisy’s plan includes increasing funding towards violent crime enforcement. So although we feel that the drug user should not be punished, we do feel violent criminals should be.