Notes of America's Unjust drug war

The author is against the idea to outlaw drug use.

Prohibitionists argue that recreational use of drugs should be prohibited because the drug use is extremely harmful both to drug users and to society in general, and possibly even immoral.

Legalizers say no, based on the arguments that (a) drug use is not that harmful., sometimes even beneficial (b) drugs prohibition is not successful and good intention might lead to unintended consequences (c)drug prohibition is unjust or violate rights.

The author focused on three arguments (a) drugs should be outlawed because of the harm they cause to the users (b) should be outlawed because of the negative externality (c) drugs should be legalized because prohibition violates rights

The author shows that the first two arguments fail while the last one holds.

First argument: drug use is harmful to the users and government should prevent people from harming themselves.

Formal argument:
1. Drug use is harmful to users
2. the government should prohibit people from doing things that harm themselves
3. therefore, the government should prohibit drug use

The premise 2 is not that plausible. (Refer to Mill, Hayek, etc.)
The author used consistency principle to argue that: if drug use should be prohibited because of its harm caused to the users, then all activities that is potentially bad for users should be prohibited, such as smoking, overeating. However, no one calls for imprisoning smokers or fat people.

Some people argue that drug should be prohibited because it damages users' relationship with others. The author contended that since it is wrong to punish people for directly bringing about bad results (isolate with others), it would be wrong to punish people for using drugs just because it potential leads to bad results.

My thoughts: sure no one punishes you if you act like an isolated hermit, but if you physically hurt other people, that's a different story. Drug users might physically hurt other people, and shall we punish them then?

Some people call for prohibition of drugs because they think drug usage decrease users' sense of duty and responsibility. The author contended that one should not prohibit an activity on the ground that it may indirectly cause some result, unless it would be appropriate to prohibit the direct bring about of that result.

Second: negative externality
Some argue that drugs should be outlawed because drug use harms other people. However, the author uses the same logic in the previous argument to reject such claims.

Third: injustice of drug prohibition
It is unjust for the state to punish people without having a good reason for doing so. The author argues that people have a natural right to use drugs.