We Seriously Should Legalize All Drugs

If you grew up any time within the last 50 years, you're probably at least vaguely familiar with the war on drugs and its ramifications. While I am young enough to have missed out on the infamous D.A.R.E. program, Red Ribbon Week along with other constant strict anti-drug propaganda led me to believe that using drugs was synonymous with being a bad person. But after a few years of being an adult, experiencing the real world, and a shit ton of unlearning, I've come to the conclusion that the best, all encompassing solution to our country's complicated drug problem is to simply legalize it all. Now, if I were to tell this to my child self, she would be both confused and outraged: "What?! Drugs are incredibly dangerous! They ruin lives! People die!" While everything little Ashley said is true, she fails to understand the nuance and complexity of the issue, the same way many adults still do today. If the goal here truly is to improve the quality of our society and actually keep people alive, legalizing all drugs is the way to go. Don't believe me? Well then keep reading, you silly goose!

Drug laws are not based in actual reason/empirical fact.

When discussing the functions and rules of our legal system, it's important to remember that legality does not equal morality, and that a lot of the people who have and continue to create our laws are stupid, evil, or both. If our laws really reflected the reality of the dangers associated with drugs, alcohol would be illegal, which according to Lumiere Healing Centers on November 28, 2022, is, statistically speaking, the most dangerous and deadly drug of all. So, if alcohol kills more people than any other drug and is incredibly easy to obtain, why is is that something like cannabis, a drug that has literally never killed anyone, is still classified as a Schedule I illicit substance? Just like so many other problems with the United States, the answer can be traced back to one simple word: racism.

In 1971, President Nixon declared the previously mentioned "war on drugs", disguising his and other leaders' malicious intentions as a genuine concern for the safety of our communities. And no, I'm not just assuming what Nixon's true objective was. His domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, explicitly revealed the Nixon administration's motives in a 1994 interview:

"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and the blacks with heroin and then criminalizing them both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

This war on drugs and the racism embedded within it has had long lasting effects, largely thanks to the evil efforts of Mr. Ronald Reagan, who made the war on drugs, along with practically everything else he was able to get his hands on, unfathomably worse.

Legalization is the best path towards harm reduction.

Contrary to what we all have been taught through our schooling and our culture, these people are not criminals, they are victims. Addiction is a disease and should be treated as such! According to the New York Times on January 26, 2022, criminalizing the use of drugs is like abstinence only sex education--it just doesn't work. To minimize the harm that many of these drugs bring to our loved ones and communities, many organizations, such as the National Harm Reduction Coalition, have created syringe service programs/clean needle clinics, where drug users can administer their substances under professional supervision and the safest circumstances possible. I've brought this solution up to strict anti-drug normies in the past only to be met with straw man rebuttals: "Oh, so we're encouraging people to use drugs now??" No, silly. Clinics and programs like this provide safety to those who were going to do the drugs one way or another. By having trained professionals supervise the administration of these illicit substances, we can have better quality control over the drugs, making sure that nothing is laced with anything else more dangerous and is correctly dosed, stopping easily preventable overdoses and death. If all drugs were legalized, we could even fund these clinics using the tax income gained through this new regulated market! Either that or we cut the military budget in half. Idk I'm just spitballin here.

Keeping drugs illegal limits opportunities for research.

For example: cannabis. Despite being legalized in several states and growing widespread social acceptance, its federal categorization as a Schedule I controlled substance has made it really hard to understand the risks/benefits of the drug for regular users.

Another excellent example: psychedelics. With the limited amount of research that has been done on these types of drugs, a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology on February 15, 2022 found that psilocybin (the psychoactive chemical in shroomies) can be used to treat depression and anxiety in ways that normal psychiatric medication can't. As a mentally ill person who doesn't love the idea of being shackled to the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of my life, I'd love the opportunity to explore other healing options. But these are still mind-altering drugs we're talking about here! Which is why professional medical oversight (through legalization) is crucial.

It would make cops suck (a little) less.

Not only do police officers uphold white supremacy (whether they mean to or not), but they're also really bad at doing their jobs; and all of this time they spend terrorizing people who use/sell drugs certainly isn't helping. According to the ACLU's 2023 statement against drug prohibition, today, drug-law enforcement takes up more than half of police resources nationwide. Like???? I knew these piggies were useless but holy shit! Can y'all at least TRY to focus on things that actually matter?

Additionally, the LA Times on July 21, 2021 reported that while black and white communities use cannabis at practically the same rates, black people are four times more likely to be arrested for possession. Even though this statistic is about cannabis specifically, it's still indicative of the way drug use and the policing of such activity has become unnecessarily racialized. While our criminal justice system is undeniably racist in nature, legalizing drugs would be a huge step towards eliminating these disparities.

Legalization would reduce crime overall.

Keeping drugs illegal and lucrative makes their creation and distribution incredibly risky, giving dealers justification to charge absurdly high prices. These high prices make it virtually impossible for the addicted individual to satiate their need without committing additional crimes to afford the drug. If all of this was legal and regulated, the process would be much less risky and therefore, would have less expenses in the process that needed to be accounted for--making the drugs cheaper and benefiting literally everyone, regardless of whether you use drugs or not.

While these were just a few of my favorite reasons for why we should legalize all drugs, there is still plenty more to be learned and studied on how we can remedy the disastrous consequences of the war on drugs. By opening our minds to new, unconventional solutions to our society's macro-level issues, we can take gradual steps to undo these broken systems that govern our everyday lives. Keep dreaming big, no matter how silly and unrealistic these goals may seem. A better world is possible.