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Deregulating Drug Use
an anarchist perspective
The debate about drug use in this country is usually framed in
terms of continued criminalization vs legalization. the positions
in this debate mean continued harassment, including arrests,
imprisonment, theft of property, and possibly in the near future,
execution of drug dealers and users, vs legal regulation of drug use
and sales, similar to that of alcohol and cigarettes, including heavy
taxation, and restraints on where, when and to whom drugs can be sold.
Both of these positions are based on the same assumption, government
has the right to tell individuals what they can and cannot do. While
legalization would surely be preferable to continued criminalization,
there is a third alternative: decriminalization and deregulation.
Decriminalization and deregulation of drugs would mean no laws against
drugs, no government regulation of drugs sales and use, no arrests, no
prisons, no taxes. Eliminating drug laws, instead of simply replacing
them with different laws, would produce a free market in drugs where
people would be free to sell, ingest, or inject whatever they wished,
without government interference.
Drug use is a voluntary, non-violent activity, and should be an
individual decision, the business of no one but the user. Government
has taken it upon itself to regulate drug use, just as it regulates
alcohol use, restricts abortion, and registers and drafts people. in
order to better control people. Criminalization of drugs has produced,
just as prohibition of alcohol did, an enormous amount of violent
crime. Most of this crime is motivated by the need to obtain money to
pay the artificially inflated price of illegal drugs.
This drug-associated crime is then used as an excuse for police to
indiscriminately harass young black men, stopping and searching, and
frequently arresting them on the street, for no reason other than that
they live in a "high crime" area. Doing away with drug laws would
dramatically lower the cost of drugs and thereby eliminate most street
crime, as well as remove the excuse police use to terrorize black
people.
Decriminalization and deregulation and the resultant competitive
market in drugs would produce purer and safer drugs, eliminating much
of the death and illness associated with drug use, most of which is
caused by contamination of drugs or needles, and unreliable drug
strength, not by the nature of the drug itself. Heroin is no more
dangerous than aspirin if it is carefully prepared without dangerous
additives and injected with a sterile needles. And aspirin overdose
can kill as easily as heroin overdose, it just takes longer and feels
worse. Decriminalizing needle use would virtually eliminate the
transmission of AIDS among IV drug users, as has been the experience
in the 38 American states which do not restrict sale of sterile
needles. Needle exchange programs are not enough; there need to be
more needles available to eliminate needle sharing.
Besides abolishing laws against recreational drugs, eliminating
government regulation of "therapeutic" drugs would also benefit
people. The FDA prevents many drugs from reaching the market,
including treatments for AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses. And
those that do eventually become available are delayed for years by FDA
rules, while thousands die. The government is currently responsible
for restrictions on aerosolized pentamidine, a drug which prevents
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. the most frequent cause of death in
people who have AIDS. Just as drug laws lead to deaths associated with
street drugs and keep people from obtaining sterile needles to prevent
transmission of AIDS, drug laws are killing people with AIDS by
denying them effective treatment. Drug laws in this country are also
preventing marketing of newly developed abortifacients, drugs which
induce abortion early in pregnancy, freeing women from their current
reliance on the medical establishment for abortion services. these
drugs would put the decision about abortion where it belongs: with the
individual.
Eliminating drug laws would greatly increase people's options in
the areas of pleasure and health. It would also reduce crime, reduce
death and illness associated with illegal drug use, and reduce deaths
from AIDS and other serious illnesses. Individuals should be free to
make their own decisions about drug use, and all other aspects of
their lives, without the interference of government or "the community".
NO COPYRIGHT
Please send two copies of any review or reprint
of all or part of this to:
Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade
(BAD Brigade)
PO Box 1323
Cambridge, MA 02238
Internet: bbrigade@world.std.com
November, 1988
Abolish all Prisons !