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What is the Problem with Illegal Drugs?
My father was a cocaine addict who died of an overdose. He began using when I was about eight, and died when I was 24. He tried to quit a couple of times — twice he went into treatment centers — but he was not successful.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the problem of illegal and addictive drugs but have avoided drug-related threads because they’ve just been too painful to read. When I was younger and still considered myself a libertarian, I was very sympathetic to legalizing drugs. The “War on Drugs” is extremely expensive and its success is debatable. At this point, I’m just not sure which way is best. (For whatever it’s worth, according to this ngram, the phrase “war on drugs” didn’t become widely used until after 1980. Thanks to Mike H for that interesting link.)
Though — as I said — I haven’t followed all the arguments as closely as I should have, I think there’s a “supply and demand” aspect to illegal drug use that gets overlooked, mostly because both sides focus so much on the “supply-side” arguments, aruging either in favor of continuing or removing restrictions on the amount of drugs.
Is that the best way to look at the problem? In one sense, the cycle begins from the supply side: drugs have to be available before people can become addicted to them. But even if that’s where it begins, it must also be fueled and fostered from the demand side. Some people want to use harmful substances, or are compelled through addiction to do so. Suppliers will find a way to meet this demand. If people did not want to use harmful substances — or if they were not compelled by addiction — we would not have our current problems.
Might our energies be better spent if we focused on how to legitimately reduce demand? Keeping harmful substances illegal probably dampens demand, mainly by instilling fear of getting caught in those who might otherwise use the harmful substances. I think we can all agree that it would be good to reduce demand based on the free and willing choice of individuals to refrain from those substances. If we could radically reduce demand for drugs, our problem would be reduced if not solved.
I’m not necessarily looking for a proactive policy suggestion here, but I’m not excluding it either. I’m really just thinking out loud, mainly because if we misdiagnose the problem, our solutions will never be effective and its certain we will always be arguing over them.
I first floated this idea on Majestyk’s thread on the libertarian vision. In response, Midget Faded Rattlesnake asked a great question:
But to what extent is political policy a legitimate and effective tool for helping people to make this choice?
Ryan had this to say:
There are just so many factors contributing to why a person uses harmful drugs, it isn’t a problem with any easy (or even realistic) solution.
He is probably right. Then again, when I accept that there isn’t a realistic solution, I feel very sad.
What do you all think? Has our society misdiagnosed the problem? Is it more a supply-side problem, or one of demand?
Published in General
Once you read through the AA Big Book, you realize that the progression of AA’s founders — and many others — continued apace during Prohibition. It is quite illegal for most college students to drink, yet we hear of rampant problems with alcohol abuse on campus.
The first order effects of blanket prohibition are the criminalization of the addicted and increased price by restricting supply. It isn’t clear that very many potential addicts are dissuaded from using the substances in question.
I understand about films being triggers. Casino was a huge trigger for me. It’s a little strange, because at this point I only remember feeling triggered by it–I don’t remember much about the film itself except that Sharon Stone was in it, and the entire “vibe” of the film reminded me of my childhood with my dad. Weird how that works.
What is Traffic about?
I’m not sure I agree with the idea that addicted people “choose.” I doubt her father is choosing drugs over her. He may be “medicating” some prior trauma. The fact that it harms his relationship with her (and others) is a side effect of the “medication.”
But I don’t know. It’s tough for me to think that my dad made a positive choice of cocaine over me–that messes with my brain and heart too much.
Somebody added an image to the post. Is that why it got bumped to the top of the page?
Do you know if that has been successful? I’ve always wondered if it was working.
Every time I get Sudafed, I wonder how these measures would work with other hard-core drugs like the opiates: available without a prescription but with some hoops to go through before purchasing. (It would turn the pharmacists into the liable barkeepers of the drug world.)
Once again my ambivalence towards drug legalization raises its ugly head. On one hand, I see drugs as a very damaging influence – alcohol included amongst these. (Note, I’m speaking as an occasional drinker.) Full legalization seems problematic to me, and I’m concerned that it won’t solve all problems, nor do I believe will crime necessarily decrease as much as posited.
On the other hand, I dislike the War on Drugs in that I dislike any social policy described as “War on” anything. War should have a specific meaning and carries certain expectations legally and extra-legally. Using “War” to describe any sort of social policy attaches those assumptions onto social policy that’s best used towards actual war with other nations, not with inanimate substances, financial hardship, or philosophy.
The War on Drugs has introduced a large number of policies that have escaped their bounds. Civil Forfeiture is one of the worst. It was used to combat the supply-side of substance abuse, but has long passed that and is used to steal property from law-abiding citizens for government purposes.
In the end, my ambivalence is fading as I go. I lean towards legalization, though I can’t bring myself to embrace it entirely. I’d sooner keep them illegal, but cease the egregious suspension of civil rights.
It’s probably being prepared for front page promotion.
Jennifer,
While you are correct that most policy addresses the supply-side of drug use, drugs are actually a demand-side problem. Any solution that addresses supply is foolish. I am convinced that no amount of law enforcement can keep enough drugs out to make a noticeable dent in users.
Take heroin as an example. Stepped-up enforcement has created a market for substitute goods like prescription oxy’s and valium, as well as street drugs like krokodil. There are just too many ways to get high by smuggling, stealing, or baking. Policies geared towards disrupting supply will always fail.
On the other hand, mandatory random drug testing for anyone receiving government aid could have a serious affect on drug use. It impacts demand. Casual users, say single mothers, may be convinced to stop using if continuing means risking their welfare payments. For those too deep in their addiction, being completely cut-off from government aid will likely push them into full-blown homelessness, malnutrition, etc. What better advertisement is there than that for staying away from drugs?
The problem as it stands now is that far too many crack/heroin/meth users receive checks that keep them alive. Watching members of their community become burdens on the local community and/or waste away and die would be a powerful advertisement for the next generation to pursue other hobbies.
One of the problems I see is that for some reason we constantly seeking 100% when we could be just as well at 85-90%. Getting to those is relatively cost effective. The problem comes at getting past that. We seemingly spend billions to get from 90 to 91%. That’s hardly a good payoff. Moreover, once you get to that level, laws and policy hinder the law-abiding far more than the supposed intended targets. The restrictions on pseudophedrine come to mind. Unreasonable sentencing does as well.
I don’t see full legalization as necessary, but we must end the “War”. We’re getting caught in the crossfire.
I think you have just aptly described where the American electorate is on this issue right now. :)
The comparison of alcohol to drugs is somewhat misleading. One does not smoke a joint for the taste. One glass of a single malt scotch does not make one high. Marijuana, heroin, meth, cocaine, and any other drug you care to name are always abused from that first moment of use. There are people that abuse alcohol, but not every user of alcohol abuses it.
The argument that the war on drugs is expensive but if we legalize drugs that expense will go away is not true. Addicts spend every waking moment in the relentless pursuit of chasing that first high. Legalize drugs and the costs of the war on drugs will be shifted to feeding and housing addicts who will not work or be so incapacitated that they cannot work.
The danger of legalization is that the state has now sanctioned drug use. Not that an addict necessarily needs a logical argument to sanction their use, but for the first time user, such as an 18 year old that will be a rationalization to buy and use drugs.
In the case of marijuana, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado will see a revenue spike from sales at state sanctioned pot stores, at least for a little while. Marijuana is much easier to grow than distilling a single malt scotch. There will be a revenue drop as soon as non-state sanctioned producers start selling pot. We can call this the war on illegal legal drugs.
I believe that real-life experience with the effects of alcohol vs. “hard” drugs and the characteristics of alcohol addiction vs. “hard” drug addiction should incline us to treat the two things as different beasts.
I base this on my father’s experience, who is a recovering alcoholic active in AA. Based on his very long experience with addicts that he’s known through his work in AA, he strongly believes that alcohol needs to be treated differently from other drugs.
I think other people who have had long experience with multiple types of drug addiction agree. Alcohol is a drug, but not all drugs are of equal danger.
Yes. There’s a real case to be made for inventing better drugs and that’s extremely difficult to accomplish within prohibition.
One big problem is that most users do not have medical supervision of their pharmaceutical consumption.
Keith Richards says that the two biggest reasons he’s lived so long while taking so many recreational drugs is that a) he can afford the good stuff, and b) he has doctors who advise him on safe dosages.
I think this is over-correcting.
While it’s absolutely true that alcohol can be enjoyed for reasons besides intoxication to a more easily than most other drugs, there are wildly different levels of intoxication available to within marijuana (I can’t comment meaningfully on the others, but I imagine the same principle applies).
Moreover, I completely disagree that all use of all illegal drugs is abuse. Smoking an joint on a weekend — as I did a handful of times — is very little different from getting a little hammered at the occasional party.
Regular drunkenness and addiction are serious problems; not all drug use is tantamount to them.
“What is the problem with illegal drugs?”
Well, to start, there isn’t a problem but multiple problems. There are specific problems inherent with each individual drug. For example, the problems associated with the manufacture, distribution and use of methamphetamines is different from the importation, distribution and use of cocaine. The problems associated with those illegal drugs are much different than the problems accompany the prescription, distribution and use of legal drugs such as oxycodone. To compound the difficulty in addressing these issues, treatment options for the various drugs also may differ from substance to substance.
What one needs to remember is that all law associated with all of the various illegal and controlled substances is and always will be reactionary. There was a reason crack cocaine and powder cocaine carried such a sentence disparity on the federal level. (If your immediate response to the last sentence is the the disparity was based solely upon race then you don’t understand the inherent problems. I don’t know a polite way to state that point.) Parent A’s question is just as reactionary as any law on the book. It is a reaction to her own experience with her father and others. She wants to find a way to fix the “problem.” Just remember, legislators will react to any public outcry about civil forfeiture and minimum mandatory sentences and mitigate the laws to satisfy their constituents. The laws will stay changed until a future legislature reacts to a a wave of overdoses, stories of drug dealers amassing fortunes out of the reach of the government and violent crime and then reacts by toughening the laws once more.
I swap sides on this pretty regularly, in regards to the harder drugs mostly. On the one hand I sympathize with the families that suffer from the choices their loved ones make to engage in this (often) destructive habit. On the other hand, I recognize that human nature will never change, and people who *want* to be addicted will be. You can’t help them. This leads me to the rather harsh conclusion that the government could best “help” these people and their families by offering the addict a free ticket to a special community where unlimited amounts of the addicts favorite hard drug are available. The addict will live there among other addicts for a while, until the inevitable overdose.
The issue for me boils down to: How much tax money are we willing to spend to ‘straighten out’ someone? I don’t want my tax money spent on abortions, on medicaid benefits for lifestyle-driven obesity, or cancer treatments for habitual smokers. Why should I be okay with very costly programs to try and force people to stop taking drugs? Segregate them from society for it’s protection and let nature take it’s course.
Now there’s an idea! Good thinking outside the box, Marci!
I believe it’s a false dichotomy to say that the only options are legalization and a crippling drug war.
The drug war, and its costs, are more about enforcement priorities than it is about the laws on the books.
There are plenty of countries where recreational drugs are illegal, and yet they don’t have crippling law enforcement costs because they’re much more strategic about how they prosecute drug offenses.
I am asking this in all seriousness.
When we end the war on drugs and deregulate the drug marketplaces, I’d like to see two other things happen:
(1) DDT made available over the counter–yes, I mean the pesticide. Ticks and mosquitoes are killing and crippling as many people as heroin ever dreamed of.
(2) Antibiotics.
I don’t see these regulated substances as being different in any way from the opiates.
I can make exactly the same case for regulating them and deregulating them as is made for the opiates and psychiatric drugs.
In a sense you’re all debating about the size of one tree in a very large forest. The larger issue isn’t substance A vs substance B, it’s “Can you perfect man through regulating his vices?”
Throw out any of the religious aspects and morality is simply a sense of right and wrong. Laws are a collective morality. It all starts because somebody says, “I believe X is wrong or bad for society! Let’s ban X!”
And X is all over the political map. It can be drugs, porn, sex, guns, cars, you name it. But as long as man is weak and imperfect you can’t stop anything by writing words down on a piece of paper.
And as long as humans interact there can never be so-called “victimless crimes,” either. Innocents will always suffer the internal abuses of others.
So what to do? I’m not sure becoming an enabler is the answer. Nor can you ghettoize it. We can’t keep 11 million illegal aliens from crossing our borders, you think we could zone the drunks, crackheads and pot smokers into their own cordoned off areas?
The truth is we just muddle through these things.
Can you tell us more about this?
Just thinking out loud here. Maybe who think illegal/addictive drug use is a victimless crime don’t have first hand experience with it?
I couldn’t help but notice the quotes here. Are you suggesting there isn’t a problem?
I retract this. You were probably quoting from me.
Well, it can be a victimless crime if no one’s life is ruined through the intoxication, chance of addiction, or physical effects. Some drugs that are illegal — marijuana in particular — are relatively easy to use without victimizing anyone.
Something like heroin is much harder to use responsibly; meth — from what I know of it — almost always causes harm to those who use it.
If you’ve been born with uncaring parents, never procreated and/or managed to hook up with another addictive personality, or if you’re totally unemployed and no one is dependent upon you doing something constructive…
So any intoxication is immoral, regardless of whether or not it has consequences, or even if the consequences are mitigated against (doing so in moderation, at home, etc.)?
Again, drug abuse and addiction are extremely serious problems, but not all drug use is drug abuse.
There are people who are trying to escape the pain of living. There are people who are trying to find enjoyment through various kinds of stimuli, including alcohol.
There are people who are open to suggestion. The suggestion that something enjoyable occurred, or that some pain of living was relieved at least temporarily, suggests that if it worked once, it may work again.
However, we are not separate from the people around us. We are members of families, or work with others, and what we do has an effect on them as well.
How do we protect a spouse from another spouse who has lost all self-control? How do we protect children from a parent or parents who have lost all self-control? Who becomes responsible for kids in that situation.
For the life of me, it seems that libertarians haven’t weighed the issues on this. After all, we are considering adults, only.
Great post, Parent A. Really, truly great.
I am dismayed that the rest of the conversation has taken the typical turn toward drug legalization and less-harmful recreational drugs, when the post dealt specifically with the much thornier issue of unalleviable human suffering.
I am even more dismayed at my fellow “libertarians” (you know who you are) who are unable to read the phrase “are there any solutions?” without a knee-jerk response of “Statist!” Jennifer explicitly said this post is not looking for a government solution (although she didn’t rule it out) – she wants to talk about the human root of the problem.
All we ever do on Ricochet is talk about the state, the state, the state. If we could get our collective heads out of obsession with all things statist, we might be able to find ways of discussing the root problem (the human basis of addiction) which don’t require state intervention.