Harm of Public Policy

Having public policy in society is very important and this couldn’t apply more then to the consumption of psychoactive drugs in society. Often it is assumed that when individuals talk about ending prohibition they envision a future with children injecting heroin and peddlers on every street but this assumption is sadly, incorrect. People who believe in ending prohibition like myself want a regulated and controlled market rather then the unregulated and uncontrolled market of drugs that currently exists. It isn’t because we don’t want control on the drugs, it is because we do. This control will result in ethical, respectful and scientific ways of distributing drugs which obviously would have to include the production of it as well.
We also need to think about the consumption aspect of it, where would it be allowed? Who would be allowed to use it? What could be ways of establishing a licencing practice similar to like automobile driving which is much more dangerous then sitting at home smoking a joint and even snorting a line of cocaine.

A regulated market provided by both governmental and non-governmental agencies would be required. It would require likely years of implementation with both help from all levels of government, communities and businesses including the currently illegal business which include selling marijuana, hallucinogens, cocaine, and more. We can move beyond cops busting down doors and lawyers trying to make sense of this ineffective method with more realistic and pragmatic policies that hell people rather then hurt. Even with the laws of murder, murder doesn’t cease to exist and sadly with the laws of some drug use being prohibited, murder increases as can be seen right now with the violence in Mexico.

Criminalization of particular behaviours that don’t result in harm to another only crushes the sense of belonging for those who engage in this behaviour. It applied to women while not able to vote, own property or do particular jobs. You only now see women really rising to the challenge to being equal and even after years of fighting, we are still not truly as the ousting from societies and more still exists regardless of how smart or powerful women are becoming. There still is no female as president but yes, a black man will do.

The criminalization of human behaviour that doesn’t harm others isn’t anything new and it includes being gay, not being of particular religion beliefs, of colors, and other behaviors labeled as deviant in society but really are just variances on a spectrum of human behaviour. Murder is a very harmful human behaviour directly to another person that causes great hurt to society as a whole and as yet, we do not understand why the human being behaves in this fashion but until this can be “cured” we put them in jail as we have no other means of protecting society from individuals who may kill again. This goes with for those who hurt others in some way purposely with intention of benefiting from this act. However, people who use drugs, they don’t want to hurt anybody and people who become addicted, are very sick people due to having a potentially life-threatening brain disorder which has many causes, none of which are the individuals fault or the drugs.

Abuse and addiction of drugs is a medical problem with biological roots along with psychological, sociological and cultural/spiritual influences. If the biology is messed, all the other areas of the person's life will be seriously impeded on and unable to function thus leading to maladaptive drug abuse and addiction along with an assortment of problems related to health. Public policy needs to be aware of this and treat those who abuse or are addicted to with special consideration as to their needs for the disability they have. By criminalizing addiction to some drugs, we will never develop any sort of cohesion in society that allows for drug use to stabilize and become less of a social problem then it is currently.

Public policy is creating our social problem of addiction along with how our biology works. When we lack control over our circumstances (prohibition creates this), we begin to do more irrational and dangerous actions as we become more desperate due to the law not preventing people from using drugs but it does cause people to have to lie about it. It is no different then when women would lie and pretend to be a man, today, gay men lie and say they like women and so forth. Drug users lie because we force them to. If prohibition is taken out of the equation of public policy, harm of drugs will go down as the distribution of them becomes established. it is related to feeling internal shame of which is extremely detrimental to the person which transfers to the community and so on, think of the DTES of Vancouver, BC.

A future involves being allowed to grow the coca plant to enable you to chew on the leaves instead of snorting it is as coca leaves aren’t available only cocaine isolated as it is easier to ship and cheaper resulting in bigger profits for the amount of cargo. A regulated market can take this away as people are able to go to a governmental agency that provides known doses of a variety of psychoactive drugs including tobacco and alcohol as they too need to be regulated more effectively to reduce the promotion of the substances. This shouldn’t be allowed as this greatly increases the use. To top it all off, the promotion of these drugs encourages its use as really, most people should be smoking marijuana not drinking alcohol. It is much safer on a daily basis for thirty years. Alcohol can’t be consumed in that fashion without serious health consequences due to its neurotoxicity.

The system won’t be perfect obviously and people will become addicted to drugs no matter what but really the solution is harm reduction as it allows for people to belong again and connect with who they are along with others. It crushes the harm of prohibition as it is no longer demonized as being wrong when it is just a human behaviour that goes wrong sometimes when people are sick.

A future can also recognize that drug use is a tool that we use just like our cars, houses and laundry machines. It has good and bad consequences and for some things, our tools are harder to understand and put into categories. Drug use is very hard and most can’t think of people using drugs without becoming addicted but this is really the norm. Policies need to recognize that drug users aren’t criminals unless they are doing something illegal like drink alcohol and drive.

We need to regulate and try to put some sort of order on our world but this attempted order can’t be more harmful then what it is trying to control.