"The constraints on the power of the federal government, as laid down in the Constitution, have been eroded by a monopolistic medical profession administering a system of prescription laws that have, in effect, removed most of the drugs people want from the free market." (Thomas Szaz)
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Drug criminalization and the "war on drugs" have for 98 years served as tools of cultural oppression, and a systematic assault on individual liberty, free markets and intellectual sovereignty.
Prohibition has been a terrible failure in terms of stopping or reducing drug use. Both supply and demand reduction approaches have failed terribly.
The global crusade against politically incorrect drugs - led by the strong-armed tactics of the US government - has caused a catastrophic shortage of opium and opioid analgesics in 80% of the world; adversely affecting millions suffering from terminal cancer, late-stage AIDS, and other conditions, and causing increasing irritation toward the US. Yet our government continues to bully and impose its will upon the rest of the world, who have begun growing wise to the irrationality of the current drug policies.
The global crusade against politically incorrect drugs - led by the strong-armed tactics of the US government - has caused a catastrophic shortage of opium and opioid analgesics in 80% of the world; adversely affecting millions suffering from terminal cancer, late-stage AIDS, and other conditions, and causing increasing irritation toward the US. Yet our government continues to bully and impose its will upon the rest of the world, who have begun growing wise to the irrationality of the current drug policies.
Wherever there exists free-willed people, there will always be drug use. As long as there is drug use, there will always be some level drug problem.
Drug laws have not been effective in reducing or diminishing drug problems; we can either continue the irrational policies which have excacerbated (and in many cases created) these problems or we can learn to emotionally cope with the reality that drugs & their use will always exist, and work toward minimizing the dangers through education and an emphasis on accountable drug use.
Individuals who want to use drugs will always obtain them. Nothing - (short of violence & imprisonment) and no one - will stop them from using drugs.
The origins of our current drug policies are based in superstition and pseudoscience. Furthermore they do not reflect the actual dangers of illicit drugs. These supposed dangers are at best, largely exagerrated, and at worst, mostly fabricated.
A large portion, if not a majority, of what are currently considered "drug induced" harms are in fact caused, or worsened, by drug criminalization.
Our best evidence - that being our own experience with alcohol prohibition, as well as the promising results of narcotic decriminalization in Portugal - suggests that the repeal of the current drug laws would not lead to any significant increase in drug use or "additiction". History suggests legalization would not change anything much, and would lead to an improvement in public health as well as a decrease in crime and violence.
Harmful means of drug use such as intravenous injection is largely a byproduct of drug prohibition; dependent users take their drugs by such routes due to their high bioavailability their sparing effect on dosage, allowing more use of smaller amounts. With wider, more liberalized access to drugs, these hazardous patterns of use become much less likely.
Harmful means of drug use such as intravenous injection is largely a byproduct of drug prohibition; dependent users take their drugs by such routes due to their high bioavailability their sparing effect on dosage, allowing more use of smaller amounts. With wider, more liberalized access to drugs, these hazardous patterns of use become much less likely.
Drug criminalization has fed not only a violent criminal underworld, but has spawned a massive enforcement & treatment bureaucracy with an enormous vested interest in ensuring its own perpetuation (and the continuation of current policy); leading to an ethical deterioration or outright corruption at the level of government, enforcement & corrections, healthcare and even scientific research.
Policies which criminalize the personal choices of consenting adults are not justified by a supposed concern for "the children"; especially considering that because of these policies, illicit drugs are now more accessible to minors than are legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. Regardless, the failure of some to parent their children and the recklessness of some youth is by no means just cause for depriving adults of individual freedom.
Despite prohibitionist talking points; the approval of narcotics merely for medical use does not constitute legalization, while harms related to prescription narcotics are not representative of the likely effects of actual drug legalization - In fact, the exclusivity of medical-only narcotic use has been a major factor underlying the current surge of RX drug abuse and mortality; in part by making doctors drug monopolists, who are thus left coping with an overwhelming demand for narcotics by patients & non medical drug users alike, in which case the undue burden of responsibility is shifted from drug user to physician.
This medical narco-monopoly additionally creates a dangerous smokescreen of ambiguous marketing, prescribing, and consumption. It has led to a breakdown of honesty & clarity between doctor and patient. It has led to a wide scale of ignorance, ambiguity and misconception among drug users and potential drug users regarding the very nature of - and risks inherent with - a particular drug (this often has lethal consequences). The social perceptions, consumer education, personal responsibility, market regulations & safegaurds which should all naturally accompany the distribution of legal intoxicants, are absent in the context of clinical prescribing & distribution. The successful sale of legal intoxicants requires a completely different context than that of their clinical use; the current trend in RX-related addiction & mortality has sent this message the hard way.
Despite prohibitionist talking points; the approval of narcotics merely for medical use does not constitute legalization, while harms related to prescription narcotics are not representative of the likely effects of actual drug legalization - In fact, the exclusivity of medical-only narcotic use has been a major factor underlying the current surge of RX drug abuse and mortality; in part by making doctors drug monopolists, who are thus left coping with an overwhelming demand for narcotics by patients & non medical drug users alike, in which case the undue burden of responsibility is shifted from drug user to physician.
This medical narco-monopoly additionally creates a dangerous smokescreen of ambiguous marketing, prescribing, and consumption. It has led to a breakdown of honesty & clarity between doctor and patient. It has led to a wide scale of ignorance, ambiguity and misconception among drug users and potential drug users regarding the very nature of - and risks inherent with - a particular drug (this often has lethal consequences). The social perceptions, consumer education, personal responsibility, market regulations & safegaurds which should all naturally accompany the distribution of legal intoxicants, are absent in the context of clinical prescribing & distribution. The successful sale of legal intoxicants requires a completely different context than that of their clinical use; the current trend in RX-related addiction & mortality has sent this message the hard way.
The economic costs incurred in a climate of legalized access are very unlikely to approach the costs incurred in today's prohibitive climate of uninformed use, ambiguous purity, and lack of access to education & harm minimization. The most effective way to minimize these costs in a climate of legalization is to adopt social & economic policies which move away from mass entitlements & socialized healthcare; in turn gravitating toward policies which incentivize individual responsibility and emphasize private, rather than public, health insurance.
The restrictive medicalization of narcotic use does not constitute legalization, and its effects are not representative with the likely effects of actual drug legalization. The exclusivity of the controlled medicalization of narcotics has turned doctors into drug monopolists - who as a result have undertaken the burden of an enormous market demand for drugs by both patients and nonmedical users alike (the latter of whom, due to drug control laws, have few other sources than a clinic). The inevitable result is a flooding of doctors offices with patients whom practitioners should not even have to be dealing with, along with the unnecessary liability that accompanies mass prescribing; and the creation of a smokescreen of aggressive pain management which has broken down communication and honesty between doctor and patient with disasterous results.
The clinical setting in which drugs are supplied to nonmedical users creates an entire set of complications which have fueled the current trends in addiction and drug related harm. This clinical context lacks the regulations, labeling, societal implications and clarity which serve as much needed safegaurds in a market of legal intoxicants (such as with alcohol or tobacco). Casual or recreational drug use cloaked within the context of clinical practice has led to a deadly climate of misconception, ignorance & ambiguity.
Originating with the purpose of protecting us from being fooled and harmed by misbranded drugs, American drug prohibition in the last century has evolved into a coercive totalitatian system of protecting us from harming ourselves by self-medication--to which we've arbitrarily assigned the term "drug abuse". American adults over the last 100 years have, without hesitation, come to accept, even welcome, these instrusive measures of social & intellectual control, to where we now live our lives under a monopoly of therapeutic tutelage -wherein our capacity as individuals to exogenously pursue our own terms of well being has been stolen and tranferred to drug monopolists of the healthcare field.
Having been conditioned for generations into this Orwellian-esque environment, as Thomas Szaz explains, "we have failed to cultivate the self-reliance and self-discipline we must possess as competent adults surrounded by the fruits of our pharmacological-technological age"
The restrictive medicalization of narcotic use does not constitute legalization, and its effects are not representative with the likely effects of actual drug legalization. The exclusivity of the controlled medicalization of narcotics has turned doctors into drug monopolists - who as a result have undertaken the burden of an enormous market demand for drugs by both patients and nonmedical users alike (the latter of whom, due to drug control laws, have few other sources than a clinic). The inevitable result is a flooding of doctors offices with patients whom practitioners should not even have to be dealing with, along with the unnecessary liability that accompanies mass prescribing; and the creation of a smokescreen of aggressive pain management which has broken down communication and honesty between doctor and patient with disasterous results.
The clinical setting in which drugs are supplied to nonmedical users creates an entire set of complications which have fueled the current trends in addiction and drug related harm. This clinical context lacks the regulations, labeling, societal implications and clarity which serve as much needed safegaurds in a market of legal intoxicants (such as with alcohol or tobacco). Casual or recreational drug use cloaked within the context of clinical practice has led to a deadly climate of misconception, ignorance & ambiguity.
Originating with the purpose of protecting us from being fooled and harmed by misbranded drugs, American drug prohibition in the last century has evolved into a coercive totalitatian system of protecting us from harming ourselves by self-medication--to which we've arbitrarily assigned the term "drug abuse". American adults over the last 100 years have, without hesitation, come to accept, even welcome, these instrusive measures of social & intellectual control, to where we now live our lives under a monopoly of therapeutic tutelage -wherein our capacity as individuals to exogenously pursue our own terms of well being has been stolen and tranferred to drug monopolists of the healthcare field.
Having been conditioned for generations into this Orwellian-esque environment, as Thomas Szaz explains, "we have failed to cultivate the self-reliance and self-discipline we must possess as competent adults surrounded by the fruits of our pharmacological-technological age"
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