The Drug Problem part 8 Getting High
Much of the content of these articles regarding legalisation of drugs has concentrated upon practical considerations. Prohibition does not work. However there is also in arguments about drugs a clear assumption on behalf of those supporting criminalisation that they are the ones on the moral high ground. I disagree.
Let us start with the question, is it wrong to take drugs? One can immediately see a number of reasons why it could be wrong. You could cause harm to others, harm to yourself, harm (if you are pregnant) to your unborn child. All of the same arguments could be applied to alcohol, many of them to smoking cigarettes. What really needs to be asked is, how should we lead our lives? How and in what circumstances is it right to the state to interfere? On what grounds should it be permitted to interfere?
There are always disputes about how far law and morality are linked, and indeed whether and if so in what circumstances the law should seek to enforce morality. Whilst I am all in favour of supporting or encouraging "moral" choices in life, I am extremely dubious about the idea of the law seeking to impose morality, both in terms of freedom of choice and also because what is morally right in any particular context can sometimes be difficult to discern and given that people have very different views about morality using the law as a blunt instrument to seek to impose certain people's definition of it seems to me to be inherently wrong. For example, to take an area in respect of which few would disagree, encouraging self-respect, fair treatment of others and tolerance of others with different views or beliefs or backgrounds seems to to be plainly right. However, save for prohibiting certain objectionable conduct (for example assault abuse etc) I do not see the law as an instrument to bring about a particular type of society or thinking. You stop people doing bad things, and you encourage an atmosphere in which they both do and want to do the right things, but prescribing the right things and making them do them is inherently difficult and different from prohibiting wrongdoing.
People enjoy getting high. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is certainly a continuing one. Whilst not suggesting that pursuing your own happiness is always justified (a sadist may be truly happy inflicting humiliation or pain on others, but that does not make it right or acceptable) and indeed it can be an illusory short-term sort of happiness (balancing the enjoyment of the fix from some drugs against the subsequent lows and the consequences of addiction) in principle there is nothing wrong with doing things which make you happy. People will always seek to achieve happiness. It is right that they do so, and equally right that the state should only prohibit them from doing so where there is a compelling reason, and should also seek to bring about a situation where the state does not reduce their chances of pursuing those goals in as healthy and safe a way as realistically possible.
I am not so stupid as to think that there will be no problems or social costs from drug use. I would not expect it to be any different from alcohol in this respect. However if drugs were legal it would be far easier to educate people about the risks. It would be far easier to ensure that they know the strength of the product that they are taking. It would be far easier to help them cope with the consequences. It would be far easier to reduce the chances of them falling into a life of crime to pay for drugs. If it is accepted that seeking to be happy and using substances to get high are normal human responses, and that there is nothing inherently wrong in them, it seems to me a strange morality which makes it as difficult and dangerous as possible for people to pursue those ends.
This is before one considers the cancer of organised crime which in its various guises causes untold misery, as does the consequential crimewave of addicts burgling robbing and stealing to fund the prices that drug dealers charge. This has a subversive effect upon the operation of the law and the integrity of individuals and institutions in society. That is a serious wrong. Those against legalising drugs who think they have adopted the moral high ground should consider the disastrous moral consequences.