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DRUG LEGALIZATION
Monday, August 30, 2010
ARGUMENTS FOR DRUG LAWS
Why we shouldn’t legalize drugs
Monday, August 30, 2010
Drug laws succeed in discouraging use
Drug use can devastate a person’s life
HARMS TO USERS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Legalization would increase harms to users
More use, including underage use
More addiction
More illnesses, overdoses, deaths
Less recovery; treatment succeeds only when compulsory
HARMS TO USERS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Associates of users:
family,
friends,
co-workers,
customers,
unborn
HARMS TO OTHERS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Victims of users:
victims of accidents,
violence,
crime
HARMS TO OTHERS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Everyone else:
increased health care,
insurance costs,
lost productivity
HARMS TO OTHERS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Voluntariness (competence): Is an addict really exercising liberty?
Voluntary slavery: Are we really “free not to be free”?
Mill says no
Analogy:
“give me your wallet or I’ll beat you up”— this is coercion, not freedom
But withdrawal may be worse than a beating
VOLUNTARINESS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Ignorance: Do drug users really have enough information to make reasonable choices?
Analogy: prescription drugs
Drug education?
KNOWLEDGE
Monday, August 30, 2010
Cognitive blindspot: Long-term consequences
We are poor judges of short-term / long-term issues
drug use
obesity
savings
KNOWLEDGE
Monday, August 30, 2010
Offense to others
Moral harm
Agent: “debases the soul”
Others: bad example
COMMUNITARIAN ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Social capital
expectations
trust
cooperation
sense of community
COMMUNITARIAN ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Exploitation: drug suppliers would be using users, profiting from their weakness
Cf. Big tobacco, big alcohol, etc. Big dope?
LIBERAL ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Weakness of will
“Knowing the better and doing the worse”
Weakness of will: giving in to temptation
Paul: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.... For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
LIBERAL ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Support: insurance against weakness of will
Lower v. higher-order desires: we may want something we want not to want
Enacting laws can
keep us from doing what we don’t want to do
nudge us into doing what we want to do
LIBERAL ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Risk
Some drugs may be so harmful that it could never be reasonable to use them
Irrationality: we assume coercion, incompetence, or ignorance (Mill’s bridge)
LIBERAL ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Character
Drug use impedes character development
Society is not just for adults
Laws must help mold children into responsible adults
CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
WHERE WOULD YOU WANT TO RAISE KIDS?
Monday, August 30, 2010
WHERE WOULD YOU WANT TO RAISE KIDS?
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tradeoffs
Other values are at stake: community, virtue, productivity, prosperity, safety, etc.
Increasing liberty to use drugs could place these in jeopardy
CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tradition
Long tradition of drug laws
Society is complicated; we must find best laws by experimenting over long time
Product of reasoned choices
Good guide to human nature
Can’t predict effects of legalization
CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENTS
Monday, August 30, 2010
