[Note: this post was brought around by a recent Balloon Juice discussion. I wrote three or four replies that I intended to put up there, but I wound up getting too angry and emotional. It's always a bad idea to talk politics when angry and emotional. On my own blog, though, I can do whatever the hell I want.]
Here’s the thing. I agree that the War on Drugs has been monstrously misapplied. I agree that sending someone to prison for years because they smoked some pot is cruel and stupid. I agree that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies. So I’m very aware of the double standard I’m issuing when I say I don’t support full legalization of everything (as was advocated by some commenters in the above discussion).
It seems to be fine to throw around anecdotal evidence with regards to drug use — “I smoked pot for twenty years and I’m sharp as a tack!” “The health risks for most drugs are no worse than alcohol!” “The research that says drugs are bad for you is a lie perpetuated by the government!” — fine. Whatever. If we’re going to whip out anecdotal evidence, though, I invite everyone to meet my family.
Forget looking at the statistical connections between drugs and death, drugs and violent crime (though there’s lots to be had there — no, people don’t generally engage in armed robbery when they’re high, they engage in armed robbery when they need money to get high). The statistics you want are the child neglect statistics. An addict tends not to care if her child is missing for a few hours, or a whole night; or whether the child is eating anything but cereal; or whether the child is being abused by someone else; or whether the child has taken over the role of the adult in the household. Okay, maybe the addict cares, but that requires an awful lot of paying attention. Pass the stash, please.
And don’t argue to me that legalization won’t increase the number of addicts. Let’s say of X number of substance abusers, 3% of them are addicts/alcoholics (my guess is that’s a serious lowball, even for alcoholism, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt here). Everything gets legalized; plenty of people who didn’t use before start using; X increased by 200% (probably also a lowball). That 3% increases as well.
People should be able to do whatever they want to their own bodies — I get that argument. The problem is, people don’t exist in a bubble. It’s great to say, “If a person wants to keep themselves on a meth high for a week straight, that’s certainly not the government’s business.” But that only works if the person doesn’t have children. It very quickly becomes the government’s business when child services gets called, and I don’t know if you pay much attention, but those people tend to have their hands full already.
I agree that pot being outlawed when alcohol and tobacco are legal is, frankly, nonsensical. I should point out, though, that there’s an equally strong argument to be made in favor of banning alcohol and tobacco as there is in legalizing pot. It would, of course, fail miserably as a policy, and I’m not advocating it; I’m just saying that it’s not as cut and dry as one might think. (I would also point out that a person can have one beer and be a little tipsy, but otherwise fine; one joint has a stronger effect, making it more difficult to partake in moderation.)
This is ranty, and emotional, which is why I’m doing it here instead of elsewhere. And again, I am completely on board with the indisputable fact that the War on Drugs has been a failure by every possible standard of measurement, and must be scrapped and reconceived. I even recognize that given my “consensual adults should get to do whatever” positions, what I’ve just said doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I get the impression that full-on legalization of everything people haven’t seen or been affected by real drug addiction, not just habitual recreational use. What happens to a person and the people around them when their addiction takes precedent over everything. The consequences are strong and severe for society as a whole, and to lightly toss that aside for a principle isn’t wise. Principles don’t live in a fishbowl, and if you’re not considering the real-world consequences of your policy, you shouldn’t be shaping that policy.
But there’s something to be said for the government not intervening in private citizens’ lives. I’ve never smoked pot in my life, but it should be legal.
Legallizing pot strips money and income from drug dealers, reduces what amounts to a lot of money going out of the country b/c people could legally grow it here, and would be more profitable to a state than gambling.
But those aren’t reasons to legalize it.
The reason to legalize it is that the government is not a better judge of how I should live my life than I am. The same can be (and is) said about gay marriage, interracial marriage, gun ownership, drinking, smoking, and countless other liberties.
The 18th Amendment was passed with the prodding of a large constituency of Americans who believed that drinking was wrong – but that them abstaining wasn’t enough. They wanted to force others to abstain, as well.
Then, money that would have gone to state taxes in liquor purchases went to gangsters and criminals instead.
Sound familiar?
Mothers and fathers and bus drivers and etc. don’t need a substance to help them ignore their children or not pay attention to the road. We can’t police people’s private behavior until it becomes reckless driving or child abuse. That’s just the agreement we make in a free country.
Sorry to stand on a soapbox – I feel this way about gay marriage and guns, too. Private, law-abiding citizens shouldn’t be punished for the behavior of gangs and thugs, and people’s feelings on morality never should never be legislated.
I agree that the government is not a better judge, in theory — but when you lay it to practice, there starts to be a lot of issues. Is the government a better judge of how fast you should drive? Whether beating your children is an effective method of discipline? Whether tossing a loaded gun from one hand to another is safe in a public mall? Whether driving drunk is a problem before or after you hit someone? The fact is, government makes those judgments all the time. The question is where the line is drawn. Personally, I think the line ought to be drawn somewhere in the “recklessly endangering others” department.
Mothers and fathers don’t need a substance to help them ignore their children, but more will with easy access to said substances. People are less likely to use substances when it becomes inconvenient — look at anti-smoking legislation and the corresponding drops in smokers. Ever seen someone who’s high on cocaine trying to cook dinner for her kid? It’s not pretty.
I agree — again, in principle — that you can’t police people’s behavior until it becomes reckless. That being said, recklessness will increase. More kids will be abused. More crime will happen when people need money to feed their addictions. (And yes, there will be an increase in addictions — unless you can explain to me how additional users will lead to fewer addicts, when factoring it the genetic predisposition many people have towards addiction. Unless the argument is that the drugs being illegal leads to addiction instead of recreational usage.)
What always interests me is that people in favor of legalization never seem to have a follow-up plan for what happens then. Are they all volunteering to be foster parents? Will the money from the War on Drugs be transferred to juvenile detention centers? Detox clinics? Or will it be transferred to other things while the addicts, the larger number of addicts, are once again ignored? There are real policy follow-ups to implementation of a philosophy, and once in awhile, I’d like to see someone advocating legalization address those policy follow-ups (and no, “Anything would be better than this” is not an argument, and “Things are fine in Amsterdam” will fly for me a whole lot better once there’s some decent comparisons between the residents of the United States and Amsterdam and how they would obviously react the same way).
There’s a pretty substantial difference between gay marriage and drug legalization. Show me the statistics where gay marriage correlates to higher crime and abuse. Show me the statistics where ownership of hunting rifles leads to higher crime and abuse. (I’m firmly pro-gun control when it comes to any gun that has no purpose except to kill another human being.)
For the record, I am semi-ambivalent on the subject of pot (my largest argument comes from the capability of moderation — the effect of one joint is fairly stronger than the effect of one beer). Many of the arguments on this thread, though, stated that everything should be legalized — cocaine, meth, PCP, whatever. I respect their consistency — after all, once you say that everyone has the absolute right to do to their bodies what they will, there’s no logical argument to also outlaw anything else — but I’m not wild about the idea, personally.
This is not from a moral standpoint (though there are indeed moral grandstanders on the subject). I’m not Lincoln/Douglassing. My question is one of policy. Decriminalize everything. Look at the likely substantive results with a clear eye. Tell me the plan to address them. Because they’re not going to go away just because you’re philosophically in the right. Convince me of a sensible, workable plan to handle the results, and I’ll get on board.
*sigh* This is why I didn’t get into it on the political thread. I am not very good at arguing this with a cool, analytical head.
And, yeah, sorry, John. You kind of got the combined effect of all the stuff I was holding back from the other thread. Not fair to you.
Those are good points – I must admit. And money does get freed up from a very over-worked justice system that has to focus on kids being caught w possession, rather than catching real criminals.
I guess it boils down to where a person’s actions are specifically inflicting on the rights of someone else.
I can own a gun, but I can’t kill someone with it. I can also buy a knife, but I’m not allowed to stab anyone.
We can’t restrict parents from buying guns, booze, or even televisions – but I agree that in my opinion homes are less safe and child-friendly where a kid can get shot or, to a MUCH lesser degree, be exposed to alcoholism or violence on TV.
But then, if a kid’s asleep and a mom wants to smoke pot, can we leglislate against that?
I think that’s what it always comes down to – we have to look at what we can and should be able to do legally in any society. Because even if we outlaw something, or take a ’sensible’ action (like registering gun owners, which as a crazy liberal myself I’m surprised to find I am against) we risk endangering rights down the line.
It’s tricky though. And frankly, I don’t want to be around people who smoke pot all the time and possibly get behind the wheel of the car. But that WOULD be illegal.
But I agree that this is more complicated than some pepole think.
I found this very insightful: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2009/02/get_up_stand_up_ammiano_introd.php
And we’re on the internet – if we even starting ranting at each other, we’d be more “cool and analytical” than 95% of people on the web. :)
It comes down, I think, to a question of proactive laws. There are reactive laws, of course (like arresting someone for murder), and there are proactive laws (arresting someone for drunk driving). Proactive laws exist because the action being taken is so reckless that to allow that action to remain legal would represent a substantial and unacceptable risk to society as a whole. Criminalizing drugs is a proactive law.
To say something shouldn’t be illegal until “a person’s actions are specifically inflicting on the rights of someone else” is to be inherently against all proactive laws — that is, until someone else is violated, anything you do is legal. By this rubric, a person can’t be arrested for driving 150 miles an hour unless he/she hits someone. As I said above, if someone is tossing around a loaded gun in a crowded mall, he/she can’t be stopped until someone gets shot. While I do get the philosophy, I can’t support it. There are behaviors and actions that simply have too high a probability that they will lead to violations of others.
Luckily, there’s a way around this. Arguing in favor of legalization of pot doesn’t require the position that government shouldn’t have proactive laws — merely that pot doesn’t represent enough of an unacceptable risk to the well-being of society as a whole to necessitate a proactive law. That’s an argument that can almost certainly be won — and has the added benefit of needing to be made for each drug. That is, you don’t have to be in favor of total decriminalization of everything — just point out that pot represents no unacceptable risk, whereas meth does.
I agree with the problems of a slippery slope… which is why I like the second argument but not the first. Total libertarianism is as slippery as anything else, and I’m not prepared to live in a country with no traffic laws.
It might reflect on my driving that the idea of a country with no traffic laws actually sounds fun… until we all died and turned roads into post-apocalyptic like wastelands. (Road Warrior, anyone?)
That’s a good point – and it is about the level of risk we can tolerate and accept. Hmmm. This is a lot to think about, to tell you the truth.
I’m glad you posted this! Don’t keep your opinions to yourself – this is turning into a very interesting discussion.