Drugs.. Why Not?

1 Pages 297 Words

On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yet. But for the responsible adults, would answers no. Reason with the potential addict, yet tell him that the consequences, yes. Prey for and with him,yes. But I believer that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs.
I readily grant that the ethical issue is difficult and that men of goodwill may well disagree. Fortunately, we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse for both the addict and the rest of us. Hence, even if you regard present policy toward drugs as ethically justified, considerations of expediency make the policy most unwise.
Consider first the addict. Legalizing drugs might increase the number of addicts, but it is not clear that it would. Forbidden fruit is attractive, particularly to the young. More important, pushers, who give likely prospects their first few doses free, deliberately make many drug addicts. It pays the pusher to do so because, once hooked, the addict is a captive customer. If drugs were legally available, any possible profit from such inhumane activity would disappear, since the addict could buy from the cheapest source.
Whatever happens to the number of addicts, the individual addicts would clearly be far better off if drugs were legal. Today, drugs are both incredibly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. Addicts are driven to associate with criminals to get the drugs, become criminal themselves to finance the habit, and risk constant danger of death and disease....