Why Drug Legalization Does Not Equate To Freedom

Drug legalization is all the rage these days. Advocates of drug legalization say it would stop crime, give us smaller government, increase personal freedom, and increase tax revenues. But these arguments are seriously flawed. Moreover, the focus on the drug users’ personal freedom misses the point. Here’s why drug legalization is a bad thing.

The Case For Regulation

The case for regulating drugs (i.e. criminalizing their use outside of a controlled environment) is quite simple: societal harm.

When it comes to regulation, the government should not be in the business of protecting us from ourselves, nor should we accept semantic arguments that make self-destruction into a societal issue. But the government should be concerned about dangers that are posed to others. Indeed, when a person engages in activities that can hurt other members of the public, then some form of regulation is usually proper. For example, we regulate who can drive because a many-thousand pound vehicle can kill if it’s driven wrong. We regulate poisonous emissions from factories, so the plant won’t drop a poison gas cloud on a town. We regulate explosives, we regulate hazardous chemicals, and we regulate alcohol, all because these are dangerous to other members of the public, and there is little or no way for the public to protect themselves from those dangers if they are misused.

The same is true with drugs. When people take drugs, their mental state becomes impaired and they lack the restraint/ability to take the kinds of cautions that human beings normal undertake in their actions, and they lack the hand-eye coordination needed to safely engage in certain dangerous activities. This turns even ordinary activities into dangerous ones. Indeed, consider the bus driver who gets high and hits pedestrians, or the gas plant operator who gets high and explodes the plant.... there is simply no way for the public at large to be aware of these dangers or to protect themselves. Thus, regulation of some form is proper to prevent these people from injuring others.

So maybe you just criminalize the injury rather than the usage, right? Well, there are two problems with that. First, it’s small comfort for the victims when their injury could have been prevented. But more importantly, this will lead to massive economic waste. . . the other instance where regulation is proper.

Think again, about our discussion of privatizing all roads and the problems that would create. A similar problem exists with regard to drugs. If the government did not prohibit recreational drug use, the public would be forced to spend an inordinate amount of time and money protecting itself from the negative effects of drug use. Employers, for example, would face liability if their employees got high and crashed a train or a company car or erroneously prepared someone’s taxes. Thus, not prohibiting drug use would result in widespread drug testing of employees. Insurers would surely follow as no car insurer will want to insure a drug user. As will doctors, police, heavy equipment operators, anyone in a position of trust, and so on. Therefore, to allow a few people the freedom of getting high, the rest of society will have their privacy invaded by constant drug testing.

Moreover, the link between drugs and crime has been proven (DOJ estimates that 80% of crime is drug related, and around 40% of criminals report being high at the time of the crime). Combating the vandalism, the theft, the assaults, and other crimes that accompany drug use will require a massive increase in police forces and prisons, or the employment of private security, which means your taxes go up and your safety goes down.

Thus, regulation is proper in this instance.

The Problems With The Legalization Arguments

Now lets look at the arguments for legalization. The legalization arguments are essentially that legalizing drugs will reduce crime, will shrink the government, will increase tax revenues, and will increase personal freedom. None of these are true.

As an aside, to make these arguments more palatable, legalization advocates have focused solely on marijuana, which is not as dangerous on a personal level as “hard” drugs -- though a large number of legalization advocates will eventually admit under questioning that they believe all drugs should be legalized. Admittedly, there are obvious differences in the negative effects of marijuana and something like methamphetamines on the users, e.g. meth tends to destroy the body and the mind in short order, whereas the negative effects of marijuana are long term and not as severe. But in any event, this argument is a red herring because both drugs cause the mind-altering effects that I’ve identified as the basis for allowing regulation. In other words, marijuana may not be as bad as other drugs for the user, but the risks to third parties are the same, and it is only the effects on third parties that should matter when it comes to regulation.

1. Reduction In Crime: Advocates of legalization argue that legalization will decrease crime in two ways. Neither argument has merit.

First, they point to prohibition as an analogy, and they claim that we created the cartels by making drugs illegal (just as we arguably created the mafia by making alcohol illegal) and we could make them powerless again by making drugs legal. But the end of prohibition did not end the power of the mafia. Nor would legalization end the market for illegal drugs. Indeed, unless you accept total legalization, including allowing children to buy drugs, then there will continue to be a market for illegal drugs as there will continue to be people who cannot obtain them legally. Even then, high taxes encourage smuggling, as is the case with cigarettes today. Thus, just like the end of prohibition did not end the mafia, there is no reason to believe that legalization will end these cartels, especially as the drug market would become significantly larger (and therefore more profitable) if drugs became legal.

Further, just legalizing marijuana, as legalizers currently suggest, would achieve nothing. California legalizers argued that this alone would end the grip of the Mexican cartels. But a study by the Rand Corporation found that only 3% of Mexican drug cartel profits came from importing marijuana to California and that legalizing marijuana would have little effect on their profits. Indeed, if one examines this issue, you will find rather quickly that drugs are only one part of the cartels’ business -- the rest involves protection rackets, extortion, kidnapping, theft, counterfeiting legal drugs, and even exporting stolen oil to the United States. Legalizing drugs affects none of that.

Legalizers also claim that if drugs were cheaper, drug users would be less inclined to steal to support their habits. But as anyone involved with criminal law can tell you, these people do not steal to supplement their income, they steal because they have no income. . . they don’t work.

2. Shrink The Government: Legalization advocates say that legalization will lead to smaller government because there will be no need for drug interdiction. However, this argument is one-sided and simplistic. First, the end of prohibition didn’t result in an end to the FBI or the ATF. Secondly, to the extent you only legalize marijuana, nothing will change as interdiction will still be needed to stop other drugs. Third, unless the plan is total legalization (i.e. anyone can buy), other government agencies will need to be created to monitor the sale and distribution of drugs. There will also be increased policing required to deal with the increased crime. And there will be drug tests for all accidents and crimes to see if there should be a “while high” charge added -- unless you intend to simply ignore the drugs entirely. . . which would increase the risks to the public by letting drug users claim the accident was beyond their control.

Basically, legalization will not eliminate a single government agency or agent, while simultaneously increasing the scope and reach and intrusiveness of government into other areas of our lives.

3. Increased Tax Revenues: This argument too looks only at one side of the equation. Yes, if you tax drugs, you will get more revenues from that source. But at the same time, you will incur the costs of dealing with the increased drug use. That means lost worker productivity, increased crimes, increased hospitalization, long term health problems, etc. Moreover, this argument is intellectually dubious as this argument could just as easily justify legalizing murder, because we could tax each killing.

4. Increased Personal Freedom: Finally, many argue that legalization will increase personal freedom. But as explained above, it depends on whose freedom you are looking at. Yes, it increases the freedom of drug users, but it hurts everyone else’s freedom. It’s highly likely that the entire public will face invasive and expensive drug testing at every turn. It’s likely that we will be less safe as more addicts commit more crimes. It’s likely that we will be surrounded by more cops and more prisons to deal with those crimes. It’s likely that to regulate the distribution of these drugs, we will find ourselves facing more regimes like we have today, where you can’t even buy cold medicine without being put into a computer. That’s not an increase in personal freedom, that’s an increase in some people’s personal freedom while destroying the freedom of everyone else. It is akin to letting me build a radioactive sludge pit in the center of town. Yes, it increases my freedom, but it hurts everyone else around me.

Conclusion

The problem with the legalization arguments are that they look only at one side of the equation, i.e. what are the benefits to the drug user and what could happen if drugs weren’t a problem. But they are a problem, and there is another side of that equation.

This is a debate that gets lost in feelings. I feel drugs are bad. I feel drugs are not bad. You shouldn’t be able to tell me what I can do with my body. We shouldn’t let people hurt themselves. All of those arguments miss the point. The real issue here is that innocent people will be hurt and their freedoms destroyed if we go for legalization.

And that’s why Californians did the right thing.