DRUG WAR'S CRIMINALIZED MINORITY

The fundamental failure of our government's policy on drugs is that
prohibition has made criminals of a conscientiously dissenting minority. It
has not merely restricted members of that minority to practicing their whim
only at certain times, places, and frequencies (which might be justified in
the public interest) but criminalized them outright, with penalties often
more severe than those levied for major crimes against complaining victims,
such as manslaughter, rape, arson, and armed robbery.

In a free society, the rights of individual autonomy are inevitably
dependent on the principle that members of minorities must be protected
from the tyranny of the majority. The greatest failing of drug prohibition
is not, as the authors suggest, the abuses relating to its enforcement but
that large numbers of citizens - a sizable minority - are being punished
for activities that they honestly believe are their own business and within
their rights.

Peter Webster
International Journal of Drug Policy
Holland