TREATMENT, NOT PROHIBITION

Why Are We Punitive About Drug Use At All?

The Oregonian's editorial "Treatment, not incarceration -- Why are we so
punitive about drug relapses?" demonstrates that the prohibitionist
editorial board of The Oregonian still doesn't "get it".

While it is praiseworthy to advocate treating an addict instead of
imprisoning him -- because he is sick and not a criminal -- The Oregonian
ignores the greater national moral turpitude of punishing people who are
neither sick nor criminal.

The reality is that the majority of all users of illegal drugs are adult
users of Cannabis who do not use any other illegal drugs, who do not
violate any person's rights, and who are not addicted according to the
medical definition of repetitive excessive use with harmful effects. The
ostensive purpose of prohibiting any and all use of a given drug is to
prevent the sickness of addiction -- in fact suffered only by a minority of
the users of each drug. In each case of the approximately 700,000 Americans
arrested each year for "marijuana offenses" (85% for possession alone),
where there is no sickness to be cured by treatment or prevented by
punishment, what then is the purpose of punishment?

There are a number of motivations for prohibition, none of them legitimate,
and none of them the rationales publicly offered by prohibitionists. Of the
two primary reasons, one is defensive and the other offensive. The
defensive persecution of non-sick, non-criminal illegal drug users is a
response to recognition that the reality of their lives threatens the
credibility of prohibitionists and their control of public opinion on the
issue.

The offensive motivation goes to the heart of moral turpitude. The most
dangerous, harmful, addictive "drug" known to humanity is the drug of
power. The strongest dose of the drug of power is dictating other people's
states of consciousness, the means of altering them, and the contents of
people's blood streams. The strongest form of the drug of power is the
abuse of the coercive power of government. Such power abuse is satisfying
only if the power junkie can be certain that peoples' behavior is a
response to the threat of punishment, rather than their own independent
judgement about the desirability of the target behavior.

Consequently, the means of power abuse has to be a criminal law which is
arbitrary, irrational, and unjust. The purpose of prohibition is an endless
test of obedience to authority for the sake of authority. It is also a test
of the degree of prohibitionist control of perception of the issue.

The editorial suggests that it is inappropriate to treat a "medical
ailment" as a "moral weakness", because the addict can't control his
behavior. Since the editorial does not condemn punishing the user who is
not sick because he does control his behavior, then the only possible
rationale for the punishment is a "moral" condemnation of the end to which
that behavior is a means. Yet I've never seen The Oregonian condemn the
non-abusive use of alcohol for the same purposes -- and with the same
effects -- as the non-abusive use of Cannabis by the majority of its users.

That prohibition punishes possessors of substances without regard to
whether any individual prosecuted is addicted and without regard to whether
any particular defendant has violated any person's rights results in
violation of the rights of people who have not violated anyone's rights --
and without any supposed medical justification. That is not the result of
unavoidable difficulties in enforcing a law responding to a difficult
problem. It is the malicious purpose of prohibition that distinguishes it
from all legitimate criminal laws. That is the essence of injustice. That
is immoral. That is the moral turpitude sold to this nation by
prohibitionist news media.