The war on drugs has caused the formation of civil asset forfeiture (which is the legalized theft of citizen property by police), and the misuse of police qualified immunity. It has turned police against citizens – every traffic stop becomes an inspection for drugs and every citizen becomes a suspect.

The economics of the drug war create dystopia. Making something illegal creates artificial scarcity, which, so long as the demand is maintained, makes selling that thing very profitable. And, as such, drug importers make tons of money, they bribe and corrupt politicians and police, they provide morally corrupt, low barrier to entry jobs, and all this creates an environment of blackmail, corruption, and criminal history for those involved.

The milieu of illegality that the users, the sellers, the police, the politicians involve themselves in due to drugs spreads into other areas of illegality. When a cop is paid to look the other way by some drug dealer, might that cop eventually be incentivized to cover up for the drug dealer? When a drug addict already has a criminal history from the use of drugs, adding additional items to the RAP sheet, like petty theft, becomes less of a concern for the addict.

The drug war incentivizes immorality and corruption, and puts money into the hands of bad people. It also serves as the perfect opportunity for creating blackmail on politicians, which further ruins the US.

All of these things were apparent in observation of alcohol prohibition, which means that the architects of the drug war intended to profit from it.

The US federal government doesn’t have the legal grounds to regulate drugs except those in the process of traveling between states, and even then, their power is limited. But, as with so many aspects of the US Constitution, the restraint on the federal government is ignored, and we as citizens either suffer or act immorally to gain.

There are many negative consequences to the war on drugs. To spell them out on a point by point basis:

• Drug dealing becomes a low barrier to entry, profitable job
  • Those with little job opportunity will involve themselves in drug dealing
  • People will get criminal records and become unemployable, furthering their spiral of being a burden on society, often leading to more offensive crimes
• Because people engage in illegal drug use:
  • They are forced to associate and pay drug dealers for drugs
    • Drug dealers, low lifes of society, are enriched
  • They are subject to blackmail
  • They are subject to illegal addiction, which tends to cause more illegal and immoral activity
  • They are subject to quality control problems because there is no standardization of and regulation on the quality of the drugs
• The State gets a reason to want to search people’s cars
  • Police gain incentive to violate people’s rights to discover illicit drug use such as lying about drug dog indications and fabricating traffic offenses
    • As more people involve themselves in the drug culture, police are trained to treat people potential criminal drug users. Consequently, normal citizens are treated poorly
    • The job of the police becomes largely a revenue agent, primarily occupied with traffic tickets and drug offenses
      • The police force and budget grow to accommodate drug offense activities and tangential crime such as violence that comes out of drug activities
• Pharmaceutical companies profit from exclusivity of mood drugs.
• Major drug dealers cause major crime
  • The high profits that come from selling large amounts drugs means these sellers will also have an army for enforcement and security. And this private army, the cartels, become a source of violent criminality, that causes much issue:
    • Rape, prostitution, assault, murder
    • Politicians get bribed
    • Police get bribed
    • Drug mules cross the border
      • More people cross the border to help hide the drug mules

There are arguments to support the war on drugs, but I’ve never seen one I could not step on:

• “Children will become addicted” They get addicted now, and I’m not advocating making drugs legal for children. Just like alcohol, age restrict it and charge those with recluse use and those that sell to children.
• “People will die from overdose” Let people kill themselves if they want. Otherwise, provide addiction services to help recovery.
• “Traffic accidents”. Treat as DUI
• “Society will crumble because everyone, including surgeons, will be high while trying to do their job”. No. And even if that were a risk, you can have a state validated drug free certification program to ensure those who ought not be on drugs are not on drugs.

So, what should be done about drugs?