Recently President Trump threatened to invade Mexico—all in its best interest, of course—in order to smash the drug cartels that are responsible for funneling so many illegal drugs into the US. There is no doubt that the drug cartels are wealthy and vicious criminals. Apparently they have taken over major towns and provinces in Mexico and have assassinated local officials and anyone else trying to curb their “trade.” Is there any alternative to stopping the violence except escalation even to the level of invading a sovereign nation? Yes, there is: Legalize drugs and end the so-called “War on Drugs.”
Man Owns Himself
An axiom of ethics is that man owns himself. No one else owns us. We are free to do as we please as long as we do not harm others. For a thorough discussion of this topic, I recommend No Harm: Ethical Principles for a Free Market by T. Patrick Burke. But, the counter-argument goes, drugs harm those who take them, and we must prevent that from happening. Plus, consuming and dealing in drugs imposes costs on the rest of us. Crime and welfare dependency escalate. Let’s assume that both of these outcomes are true. But are they related to taking drugs or are they related to the war on drugs and access to welfare? I claim the latter is the primary cause.
First of all, the crime statistics are partially related to defining selling drugs as criminal. Yet the vast majority of these sales are non-violent. If selling drugs was no longer a criminal offense, this statistic would drop without ever changing anything on the ground. Drug dealers would still sell to their clients, only they would not risk incarceration.
Secondly, like the end of the Prohibition era, gangs would lose clients to reputable drug companies. Prices and personal risk would drop, making illegal sales uneconomic. Drug quality would improve. Why buy drugs of some unknown purity at a high price from a dangerous gangster when one can simply buy safely from a reputable seller who is protected by the law? The current experience from the decriminalization of cannabis is instructive.
But what, one may ask, about the inevitable explosion of taking formerly illegal drugs? Won’t these people be harming themselves and becoming dependents upon the state (aka, the taxpayer)? First of all, what is our definition of harming oneself? Where do we draw the line between acceptable freedom to treat our bodies as we please and allowing the state to determine that line? For example, one could say that the following actions are publicly acceptable “harms” that one does to oneself:
- Overeating to the point of clinically harmful obesity;
- Extreme dieting to the point of clinical anorexia;
- Overindulging in alcohol to becoming a non-functioning alcoholic;
- Tattoos and body piercing that threaten infection and reduce one’s employment prospects;
- Risk-taking, such as freestyle rock climbing, flying one’s own airplane, swimming in shark-infested waters, such as crossing the English Channel or swimming from Cuba to Florida;
- Extreme surfing in “big waves” that have killed the best surfers in the world
Taking Personal Responsibility for One’s Own Risk Taking
Shouldn’t “society” put a stop to these self harms, both to save people from themselves and to save the taxpayer money? I say no. There is no objective line between acceptable and unacceptable risk when referring to what one does to oneself. That is the essence of owning oneself.
Secondly, why should society in the form of the taxpayer backstop any of this risk? The individual should bear the cost of his voluntary actions, and society has no ethical responsibility to take care of anyone who engages in risky activity, which includes taking drugs. A person does not have the choice to make himself a dependent. It is our personal choice whether or not we allow ourselves to accept his dependency, whether from a rock climbing accident or from taking drugs that destroy one’s health and employability.
Note the use of the word “personal” choice. We may personally decide to support someone who harms himself in any number of ways, including taking drugs, but no one may force “society” to accept this responsibility through taxes which, one must remember, are enforced at the point of a gun. In addition to welfare dependency, this prohibition on taxpayer funding should include rehabs centers and the like.
Conclusion
Freedom goes both ways. The individual has the freedom to take any risk he chooses as long as he harms no one else in the process. But the rest of society must be free from funding the consequences of the freedom of the individual to take personal risk. Legalize drugs and end public welfare for those who harm themselves by partaking in the drug culture.
