Drugs: Should They Be Legal?

First of all, I would like to point out that people should avoid drugs. I think doing drugs is useless if not dangerous. The benefits aren't really benefits, and the dangers are real dangers. For example, many people may get into drugs to change their reality, and not finding substantial change, they may take more and more dangerous drugs until they find themselves in a very bad situation. This is a real danger. (Drinking alcohol is also dangerous for the same reason.)

Note, however, that I also disapprove of gambling, frequenting strip bars, watching unethical television shows, not holding the door open for people, spending too much money, driving motorcycles, and other things. That doesn't necessarily mean that these things should be illegal. It is a very serious decision to make something illegal, and when making this decision, one should analyze the act not just in theory, but also in practicality.

I think marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin, and possibly ecstasy should be made legal, on three grounds. One: doing so would bring some positive benefits to society. Two: doing so would alleviate many negative effects on society. And three: the essence of the decision to take these drugs doesn't feel like something that should be illegal.

Here are the positive benefits to society. Alcohol has strong cultural significance, thus alcohol culture is very prevalent. Legalizing other drugs which are as dangerous or less dangerous would legitimize and bring into the open other drug cultures (like marijuana culture, or ecstasy culture) and increase cultural plurality. It would also legitimize a significant sector of the economy. (Admittedly, these are not very significant benefits analogous to, say, what legalizing free trade, free competition, and free markets would have been in the 15th century. However, the negative effects that would be alleviated are quite significant.)

Since drugs are illegal, drug selling is illegitimate. Currently, there is a market imperative for marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin, and ecstasy, because their users don't feel like they are doing anything wrong to take them. Thus, there will always be drug sellers. Legalizing these drugs would legitimize selling them, which would bring drug dealers to much closer public scrutiny. This would reduce the dangers associated with these drugs, such as selling a more harmful drug in the place of a less harmful one, lacing the drugs with very harmful drugs like PCP or, in the case of psilocybin, selling poisonous mushrooms. (Dancesafe is a good organization that tries to reduce some of the dangers associated with using ecstasy. I know of no such organizations for the other three above-mentioned drugs.) Legalizing these drugs would also reduce crime — selling drugs would not require criminal networks and would not be done in conjunction with other crimes. Also, making a clear distinction grounded in objective facts between dangerous drugs and non-dangerous drugs would reduce the gateway effect of the less dangerous drugs. In other words, marijuana would be less associated with methamphetamine, so taking marijuana would less often lead to taking methamphetamine. These are the negative effects of the drugs that would be alleviated if they were made legal.

Finally, the essence of taking these drugs, for many people, does not seem to be illegitimate. In other words, many well-informed people do not feel they are doing anything wrong or particularly rebellious by taking marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin, or ecstasy. It is analogous to drinking alcohol. I think in order for something to be illegal, it should be so dangerous that the harm would outweigh the benefit, and practically speaking, making it illegal would cause more benefit than harm. It should feel wrong, or dangerous. It should feel harmful to society. I don't think doing these drugs is like that. In theory, doing a drug like methamphetamine does much harm. In practice, it does much harm as well. In practice, doing marijuana also does harm, but mostly only because it is illegal. In theory, doing marijuana does not do much harm. So many people do these drugs, especially when they are young, because they feel it is not harmful to do so in theory, and they are not well educated about the harm it does in fact (or they feel that society deserves this harm, because certain drugs should be legal). Thus in the case of the illegality of certain drugs, it is not the drugs that are made illegitimate, but rather the government. This, I think, is a real danger.

Now I do not support the idea of doing drugs just because they should be legal. It is a fact that they are illegal, and doing illegal things is harmful to society. I would also like to reiterate that even if drugs were legal, I would not admonish people to do them, because the "benefits" (i.e. experiencing a drug induced state of mind, or experiencing reality in a different way) are not really true benefits: one is not made more educated, more morally upright, more free in spirit, more connected with reality, more friendly, more open, or more wise by taking drugs. However, practically speaking, legalizing certain drugs would probably benefit society a great deal. Also, I feel this change is on the horizon: The Pita Pit, a highly successful, corporate fast-food chain, markets specifically to marijuana users. If this is so successful, it indicates that marijuana is used by a large bloc of voters.

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Now consider this interesting, Libertarian view: Over Four Hundred and Fifty an Hour? Life is Full of Risks. The author (Ralph Maddocks) claims that all "consensual acts" should be legal. According to Maddocks, only acts which cause harm to others or coerce people into doing something without their consent should be made illegal. Thus, all drug taking and prostitution should be legal.

This is an interesting philosophical point of view, but unfortunately, I think it is a wrong one. I think an act or thing should be illegal if it causes more harm than good, and if making it illegal causes more good than harm. I think I have successfully argued that although taking marijuana, psilocybin, mescaline, and ecstacy often does more harm than good, making it illegal does even more harm. The same cannot be said for other drugs or prostitution.

Let's consider prostitution. One might feel that "employing the services of a prostitute" doesn't cause much harm. I think objectively, it doesn't, if one behaves safely (i.e. tests for STDs): sex does little harm to the body, and in terms of money, the situation could be beneficial for the prostitute. Subjectively, for most people, I think hiring a prostitute simply feels perverted or wrong, so subjectively it probably does more harm than good. But even if sex with prostitutes did not feel perverted, I still don't think it should be legalized.

The strongest argument for legalization of prostitution, I think, is one based on sympathy for the prostitute. Prostitutes may not have other ways of making a living. However, there are other, more effective ways to ensure the welfare of prostitutes or would-be prostitutes. Further, legalizing prostitution, unlike legalizing the four above-mentioned drugs, would not significantly change the nature of the act. Even if it did not feel perverted, sex with a prostitute would have the same lack of benefits and potential downfalls if legalized, because there are no downfalls associated with prostitution which arise solely because it is illegal. In other words, prostitutes are not laced with PCP, they do not engage in criminal networking to the same degree as drug dealers, and so on. Thus, I think prostitution should remain illegal.