Allow me to respond to some of the most common arguments against legalization.
Arguments against legalization:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
-Drugs are harmful for you!
-They fund crime/terrorism!
-Legalized soft drugs can become gateways to hard drugs!
-It's just morally wrong/bad, people who do drugs are bad people![/b]
Drugs are harmful for you
I. Obviously they are. A lot of things are harmful for you. These range from direct effects (like overdosing on narcotics) to more indirect effects (dying from a car crash). In the first case, the drugs
are directly causing the death. In the second case, it's not so much the driving of the car that causes the death, but the crash it leads to. If you compare the begin and end state of the two situations,
there is really no difference. Both are acts a human can undertake, and both acts have an inherent chance of leading to death or general harm. While the car crash is not a direct effect, this makes no difference
to the result whatsoever. In practical terms, we can thus assign a certain risk to almost any activity we undertake.
Viewed in this light, it seems odd make some acts illegal. It becomes even less logical when you realize that there isn't even a specific risk percentage above which every act is banned. Marijuana bears little risk to bodily harm, but it is banned, while playing sports, driving a car, or alcohol are perfectly legal, while it is clear that they are much more dangerous, percentage wise. Cutting out numbers that do not form a logical numerical pattern can only point to an alternate reason for outlawing those practices, something found rather in culture and tradition than actual logic or fact.
II. Then there is also the fact that preventing people from harming themselves is, in my eyes, a fundamental breach of their right to privacy. The government should not be able to restrict what you can and can't do to yourself. What gives them the right to put limits on you? Our entire modern society was once build on the idea that every should be free to do what he wants, unless he brings physical harm to others or restricts their freedom.
They fund crime/terrorism!
Independent studies have never shown significant links between drug-trade and terrorism, but it is quite true that drugs fund crime at the moment. It is, however, not true that this is because of prohibition. A while ago, the leader of a big colombian cartel went on record saying prohibition of drugs is a true blessing for his buisness. It is of great help to the cartels in a variety of ways.
I. First of all, it cuts out all the small dealers, because they will be busted by law-enforcement, while the big cartels have the money and material to evade them. Ensuring the large criminal cartels have the power over the market.
II. Because they control the production and smuggle routes into the country, they can control the scarcity, and make a huge pile of money.
III. Because there is no taxation, they make even more money.
IV. Because the prohibition is kept in the black market, forcing it to be smuggled in, the risk is maintained that creates part of it's value.
Legalized soft drugs can become gateways to hard drugs!
I. This one is a bit dubious as well. One of the key reasons why soft drugs are gateway drugs in the first place, is because in countries where there is prohibition, they come from the same
source as the hard drugs, because the vendors are the same. In illegality, there is no reason to separate both types of drugs, and dealers often use soft drugs to lure people into addictions to hard drugs.
In a legalized system, drugs can be separated. In the dutch system, the sources are completely separated, there is no need to get weed from illegal vendors anyway, it's not cheaper, and the quality isn't better either than the "legal" outlets. Only those actively seeking hard drugs (those who get it anyway, regardless of prohibition) come to those dealers, so soft drugs completely lose their gateway capacity (also partly due to honest education about their dangers, rather a one-sided slant about why their so bad).
It's just morally wrong/bad, people who do drugs are bad people!
I. Again, what's with the thought police? Moral judgment of people's private actions are a bridge to far for me. I do not discard the use of morals, as I personally use them to justify the main ethical rule I have, that is not to physically infringe upon other people, by killing them, hitting them, et cetera. What I don't support, and will never support, is other people telling me what to THINK, or what to do to or with my own body. No-one has jurisdiction over my person, rules are there for interaction between people, not to monitor the people themselves. Only things like religions like to do that.
II. Legalization makes it possible to control drugs, and thus limit the harm it does to people, wouldn't this be ethically better?
In the end, we can talk long and hard, but the numbers are in favor of legalization. In the Netherlands, the percentage of soft and hard drug use is much lower than in those countries with prohibition. That's just a straight fact, and the numbers show it has gotten better and better SINCE DECRIMINALIZATION. It has resulted in a society where people are educated on drugs openly, and where there is less peer pressure to actually start using.
Let me end with a quote by the philosopher John Stuart Mill:
Originally posted by John Stuart Mill
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
