why drugs should be banned essay

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Should drugs be legalized? Legalization pros and cons

Source: Composite by G_marius based on Chuck Grimmett's image

Should drugs be legalized? Why? Is it time to lift the prohibition on recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine? Can we stop drug trafficking? if so what would be the best way to reduce consumption?

Public health problem

Drugs continue to be one of the greatest problems for public health . Although the consumption of some substances has declined over time, new drugs have entered the market and become popular. In the USA, after the crack epidemic, in the 80s and early 90s, and the surge of methamphetamine, in the 90s and early 21st century, there is currently a prescription opioid crisis . The number of casualties  from these opioids, largely bought in pharmacies, has overtaken the combined deaths from cocaine and heroine overdose. There are million of addicts to these substances which are usually prescribed by a doctor. This is a relevant twist to the problem of drugs because it shows that legalization or criminalization may not always bring the desire solution to the problem of drug consumption. On the other hand there is also evidence of success in reducing drug abuse through legal reform. This is the case of Portuguese decriminalization of drug use, which has show a dramatic decrease in drug related crime, overdoses and HIV infections. 

History of prohibition of drugs

There are legal recreational drugs , such as alcohol and  tobacco , and other recreational drugs which are prohibited. The history of  prohibition of drugs is long. Islamic Sharia law, which dates back to the 7th century, banned some intoxicating substances, including alcohol. Opium consumption was later prohibited in China and Thailand. The  Pharmacy Act 1868 in the United Kingdom was the first modern law in Europe regulating drug use. This law prohibited the distribution of poison and drugs, and in particular opium and derivates. Gradually other Western countries introduced laws to limit the use of opiates.  For instance in San Francisco smoking opium was banned in 1875 and in Australia opium sale was prohibited in 1905 . In the early 20th century, several countries such as Canada, Finland, Norway, the US and Russia, introduced alcohol prohibitions . These alcohol prohibitions were unsucessful and lifted later on. Drug prohibitions were strengthened around the world from the 1960s onward. The US was one of the main proponents of a strong stance against drugs, in particular since Richad Nixon declared the "War on Drugs ." The "War on Drugs" did not produced the results expected. The demand for drugs grew as well as the number of addicts. Since production and distribution was illegal, criminals took over its supply.  Handing control of the drug trade to organized criminals has had disastrous consequences across the globe. T oday, drug laws diverge widely across countries. Some countries have softer regulation and devote less resources to control drug trafficking, while in other countries the criminalization of drugs can entail very dire sentences. Thus while in some countries recreational drug use has been decriminalized, in others drug traficking is punished with life or death sentences.

Should drugs be legalized?

In many Western countries drug policies are considered ineffective and decriminalization of drugs has become a trend. Many experts have provided evidence on why drugs should be legal . One reason for legalization of recreational drug use is that the majority of adicts are not criminals and should not be treated as such but helped in other ways. The criminalization of drug users contributes to generating divides in our societies. The "War on Drugs" held by the governments of countries such as USA , Mexico, Colombia, and Indonesia, created much harm to society. Drug related crimes have not always decline after a more intolerant government stance on drugs. Prohibition and crime are often seen as correlated.

T here is also evidence of successful partial decriminalization in Canada, Switzerland, Portugal and Uruguay. Other countries such as Ireland seem to be following a similar path and are planning to decriminalize some recreational drugs soon.  Moreover, The United Nations had a special session on drugs on 2016r,  UNGASS 2016 , following the request of the presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. The goal of this session was  to analyse the effects of the war on drugs. explore new options and establish a   new paradigm in international drug policy in order to prevent the flow of resources to organized crime organizations. This meeting was seen as an opportunity, and even a call, for far-reaching drug law reforms. However, the final outcome failed to change the status quo and to trigger any ambitious reform.

However, not everyone is convinced about the need of decriminalization of recreational drugs. Some analysts point to several reasons why  drugs should not be legalized  and t he media have played an important role in shaping the public discourse and, indirectly, policy-making against legalization. For instance, t he portrayal of of the issue in British media, tabloids in particular, has reinforced harmful, dehumanising stereotypes of drug addicts as criminals. At the moment the UK government’s response is to keep on making illegal new recreational drugs. For instance,  Psychoactive Substances Bill aims at criminalizing legal highs . Those supporting the bill argue that  criminalization makes more difficult for young people to have access to these drugs and could reduce the number of people who get addicted. 

List of recreational drugs

This is the  list of recreational drugs  (in alphabetic order) which could be subject to decriminalization in the future:

• Amfetamines (speed, whizz, dexies, sulph)
• Amyl nitrates (poppers, amys, kix, TNT)
• Cannabis (marijuana, hash, hashish, weed)
• Cocaine (crack, freebase, toot)
• Ecstasy (crystal, MDMA, E)
• Heroin (H, smack, skag, brown)
• Ketamine  (K, special K, green)
• LSD (acid, paper mushrooms, tripper)
• Magic mushrooms (mushies, magics)
• Mephedrone (meow meow, drone, m cat)
• Methamfetamines (yaba, meth, crank, glass)
• Painkillers, sedatives and tranquilizers (chill pills, blues, bricks)

Pros and cons of legalization of drugs

These are some of the most commonly argued pros of legalization :

• Government would see the revenues boosted due to the money collected from taxing drugs.
• Health and safety controls on these substances could be implemented, making recreational drugs less dangerous.
• Facilitate access for medicinal use. For instance cannabis is effective treating a range of conditions. Other recreational drugs could be used in similar ways.
• Personal freedom. People would have the capacity to decide whether they experiment with drugs without having to be considered criminals or having to deal with illegal dealers.
• Criminal gangs could run out of business and gun violence would be reduced.
• Police resources could be used in other areas and help increase security.
• The experience of decriminalization of drugs in some countries such as Portugal and Uruguay, has led to a decrease in drug related problems. 

Cons of decriminalizing drug production, distribution and use:

• New users for drugs. As in the case of legal recreational drugs, decriminalization does not imply reduction in consumption. If these substances are legal, trying them could become "more normal" than nowadays.
• Children and teenagers could more easily have access to drugs.
• Drug trafficking would remain a problem. If governments heavily tax drugs, it is likely that some criminal networks continue to produce and smuggle them providing a cheaper price for consumers.
• The first few countries which decide to legalize drugs could have problems of drug tourism.
• The rate of people driving and having accidents due drug intoxication could increase.
• Even with safety controls, drugs would continue to be a great public health problem and cause a range of diseases (damamge to the brain and lungs, heart diseases, mental health conditions).
• People may still become addicts and die from legalized drugs, as in America's opioid crisis.

What do think, should recreational drugs be legalized or decriminalized? Which of them?  Is legalising drugs being soft on crime?  Is the prohibition on drugs making the work of the police more difficult and diverting resources away from other more important issues? Join the discussion and share arguments and resources on the forum below .

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Should the United States Decriminalize the Possession of Drugs?

Several states have voted to reform their drug laws in response to the opioid epidemic and as a way to address high rates of drug-related incarceration. What do you think of this, and other, solutions?

By Nicole Daniels and Natalie Proulx

Students in U.S. high schools can get free digital access to The New York Times until Sept. 1, 2021.

Attitudes around drugs have changed considerably over the past few decades. Voters’ approval of drug-related initiatives in several states in the Nov. 3 election made that clear:

New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana and Arizona joined 11 other states that had already legalized recreational marijuana. Mississippi and South Dakota made medical marijuana legal, bringing the total to 35. The citizens of Washington, D.C., voted to decriminalize psilocybin, the organic compound active in psychedelic mushrooms. Oregon voters approved two drug-related initiatives. One decriminalized possession of small amounts of illegal drugs including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. (It did not make it legal to sell the drugs.) Another measure authorized the creation of a state program to license providers of psilocybin.

What is your reaction to these measures? Do you think more states — or even the entire country — should decriminalize marijuana? What about other drugs?

In “ This Election, a Divided America Stands United on One Topic ,” Jonah Engel Bromwich writes about the growing support to decriminalize drugs in the United States:

Election night represented a significant victory for three forces pushing for drug reform for different but interlocking reasons. There is the increasingly powerful cannabis industry. There are state governments struggling with budget shortfalls, hungry to fill coffers in the midst of a pandemic. And then there are the reform advocates, who for decades have been saying that imprisonment, federal mandatory minimum sentences and prohibitive cash bail for drug charges ruin lives and communities, particularly those of Black Americans. Decriminalization is popular, in part, because Americans believe that too many people are in jails and prisons, and also because Americans personally affected by the country’s continuing opioid crisis have been persuaded to see drugs as a public health issue.

Then, Mr. Bromwich explores the history of the “war on drugs”:

President Nixon started the war on drugs but it grew increasingly draconian during the Reagan administration. Nancy Reagan’s top priority was the antidrug campaign, which she pushed aggressively as her husband signed a series of punitive measures into law — measures shaped in part by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator. “We want you to help us create an outspoken intolerance for drug use,” Mrs. Reagan said in 1986. “For the sake of our children, I implore each of you to be unyielding and inflexible in your opposition to drugs.” America’s airwaves were flooded with antidrug initiatives. An ad campaign that starred a man frying an egg and claiming “this is your brain on drugs” was introduced in 1987 and aired incessantly. Numerous animal mascots took up the cause of warning children about drugs and safety, including Daren the Lion, who educated children on drugs and bullying, and McGruff the Crime Dog, who taught children to open their hearts and minds to authority figures. In 1986 Congress passed a law mandating severe prison sentences for users of crack, who were disproportionately Black . In 1989, with prison rates rising, 64 percent of Americans surveyed said that drug abuse was the most serious problem facing the United States. The focus on crack meant that when pot returned to the headlines in the 1990s, it received comparatively cozy publicity . In 1996, California voters passed a measure allowing for the use of medical marijuana. Two years later, medical marijuana initiatives were approved by voters in four more states.

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Drug Legalization?: Time for a real debate

Subscribe to governance weekly, paul stares ps paul stares.

March 1, 1996

• 11 min read

Whether Bill Clinton “inhaled” when trying marijuana as a college student was about the closest the last presidential campaign came to addressing the drug issue. The present one, however, could be very different. For the fourth straight year, a federally supported nationwide survey of American secondary school students by the University of Michigan has indicated increased drug use. After a decade or more in which drug use had been falling, the Republicans will assuredly blame the bad news on President Clinton and assail him for failing to carry on the Bush and Reagan administrations’ high-profile stand against drugs. How big this issue becomes is less certain, but if the worrisome trend in drug use among teens continues, public debate about how best to respond to the drug problem will clearly not end with the election. Indeed, concern is already mounting that the large wave of teenagers—the group most at risk of taking drugs—that will crest around the turn of the century will be accompanied by a new surge in drug use.

As in the past, some observers will doubtless see the solution in much tougher penalties to deter both suppliers and consumers of illicit psychoactive substances. Others will argue that the answer lies not in more law enforcement and stiffer sanctions, but in less. Specifically, they will maintain that the edifice of domestic laws and international conventions that collectively prohibit the production, sale, and consumption of a large array of drugs for anything other than medical or scientific purposes has proven physically harmful, socially divisive, prohibitively expensive, and ultimately counterproductive in generating the very incentives that perpetuate a violent black market for illicit drugs. They will conclude, moreover, that the only logical step for the United States to take is to “legalize” drugs—in essence repeal and disband the current drug laws and enforcement mechanisms in much the same way America abandoned its brief experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.

Although the legalization alternative typically surfaces when the public’s anxiety about drugs and despair over existing policies are at their highest, it never seems to slip off the media radar screen for long. Periodic incidents—such as the heroin-induced death of a young, affluent New York City couple in 1995 or the 1993 remark by then Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders that legalization might be beneficial and should be studied—ensure this. The prominence of many of those who have at various times made the case for legalization—such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman, and George Shultz—also helps. But each time the issue of legalization arises, the same arguments for and against are dusted off and trotted out, leaving us with no clearer understanding of what it might entail and what the effect might be.

As will become clear, drug legalization is not a public policy option that lends itself to simplistic or superficial debate. It requires dissection and scrutiny of an order that has been remarkably absent despite the attention it perennially receives. Beyond discussion of some very generally defined proposals, there has been no detailed assessment of the operational meaning of legalization. There is not even a commonly accepted lexicon of terms to allow an intellectually rigorous exchange to take place. Legalization, as a consequence, has come to mean different things to different people. Some, for example, use legalization interchangeably with “decriminalization,” which usually refers to removing criminal sanctions for possessing small quantities of drugs for personal use. Others equate legalization, at least implicitly, with complete deregulation, failing in the process to acknowledge the extent to which currently legally available drugs are subject to stringent controls.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government—including the Clinton administration—has done little to improve the debate. Although it has consistently rejected any retreat from prohibition, its stance has evidently not been based on in- depth investigation of the potential costs and benefits. The belief that legalization would lead to an instant and dramatic increase in drug use is considered to be so self-evident as to warrant no further study. But if this is indeed the likely conclusion of any study, what is there to fear aside from criticism that relatively small amounts of taxpayer money had been wasted in demonstrating what everyone had believed at the outset? Wouldn’t such an outcome in any case help justify the continuation of existing policies and convincingly silence those—admittedly never more than a small minority—calling for legalization?

A real debate that acknowledges the unavoidable complexities and uncertainties surrounding the notion of drug legalization is long overdue. Not only would it dissuade people from making the kinds of casual if not flippant assertions—both for and against—that have permeated previous debates about legalization, but it could also stimulate a larger and equally critical assessment of current U.S. drug control programs and priorities.

First Ask the Right Questions

Many arguments appear to make legalization a compelling alternative to today’s prohibitionist policies. Besides undermining the black-market incentives to produce and sell drugs, legalization could remove or at least significantly reduce the very problems that cause the greatest public concern: the crime, corruption, and violence that attend the operation of illicit drug markets. It would presumably also diminish the damage caused by the absence of quality controls on illicit drugs and slow the spread of infectious diseases due to needle sharing and other unhygienic practices. Furthermore, governments could abandon the costly and largely futile effort to suppress the supply of illicit drugs and jail drug offenders, spending the money thus saved to educate people not to take drugs and treat those who become addicted.

However, what is typically portrayed as a fairly straightforward process of lifting prohibitionist controls to reap these putative benefits would in reality entail addressing an extremely complex set of regulatory issues. As with most if not all privately and publicly provided goods, the key regulatory questions concern the nature of the legally available drugs, the terms of their supply, and the terms of their consumption (see page 21).

What becomes immediately apparent from even a casual review of these questions—and the list presented here is by no means exhaustive—is that there is an enormous range of regulatory permutations for each drug. Until all the principal alternatives are clearly laid out in reasonable detail, however, the potential costs and benefits of each cannot begin to be responsibly assessed. This fundamental point can be illustrated with respect to the two central questions most likely to sway public opinion. What would happen to drug consumption under more permissive regulatory regimes? And what would happen to crime?

Relaxing the availability of psychoactive substances not already commercially available, opponents typically argue, would lead to an immediate and substantial rise in consumption. To support their claim, they point to the prevalence of opium, heroin, and cocaine addiction in various countries before international controls took effect, the rise in alcohol consumption after the Volstead Act was repealed in the United States, and studies showing higher rates of abuse among medical professionals with greater access to prescription drugs. Without explaining the basis of their calculations, some have predicted dramatic increases in the number of people taking drugs and becoming addicted. These increases would translate into considerable direct and indirect costs to society, including higher public health spending as a result of drug overdoses, fetal deformities, and other drug-related misadventures such as auto accidents; loss of productivity due to worker absenteeism and on-the-job accidents; and more drug-induced violence, child abuse, and other crimes, to say nothing about educational impairment.

Advocates of legalization concede that consumption would probably rise, but counter that it is not axiomatic that the increase would be very large or last very long, especially if legalization were paired with appropriate public education programs. They too cite historical evidence to bolster their claims, noting that consumption of opium, heroin, and cocaine had already begun falling before prohibition took effect, that alcohol consumption did not rise suddenly after prohibition was lifted, and that decriminalization of cannabis use in 11 U.S. states in the 1970s did not precipitate a dramatic rise in its consumption. Some also point to the legal sale of cannabis products through regulated outlets in the Netherlands, which also does not seem to have significantly boosted use by Dutch nationals. Public opinion polls showing that most Americans would not rush off to try hitherto forbidden drugs that suddenly became available are likewise used to buttress the pro-legalization case.

Neither side’s arguments are particularly reassuring. The historical evidence is ambiguous at best, even assuming that the experience of one era is relevant to another. Extrapolating the results of policy steps in one country to another with different sociocultural values runs into the same problem. Similarly, within the United States the effect of decriminalization at the state level must be viewed within the general context of continued federal prohibition. And opinion polls are known to be unreliable.

More to the point, until the nature of the putative regulatory regime is specified, such discussions are futile. It would be surprising, for example, if consumption of the legalized drugs did not increase if they were to become commercially available the way that alcohol and tobacco products are today, complete with sophisticated packaging, marketing, and advertising. But more restrictive regimes might see quite different outcomes. In any case, the risk of higher drug consumption might be acceptable if legalization could reduce dramatically if not remove entirely the crime associated with the black market for illicit drugs while also making some forms of drug use safer. Here again, there are disputed claims.

Opponents of more permissive regimes doubt that black market activity and its associated problems would disappear or even fall very much. But, as before, addressing this question requires knowing the specifics of the regulatory regime, especially the terms of supply. If drugs are sold openly on a commercial basis and prices are close to production and distribution costs, opportunities for illicit undercutting would appear to be rather small. Under a more restrictive regime, such as government-controlled outlets or medical prescription schemes, illicit sources of supply would be more likely to remain or evolve to satisfy the legally unfulfilled demand. In short, the desire to control access to stem consumption has to be balanced against the black market opportunities that would arise. Schemes that risk a continuing black market require more questions—about the new black markets operation over time, whether it is likely to be more benign than existing ones, and more broadly whether the trade-off with other benefits still makes the effort worthwhile.

The most obvious case is regulating access to drugs by adolescents and young adults. Under any regime, it is hard to imagine that drugs that are now prohibited would become more readily available than alcohol and tobacco are today. Would a black market in drugs for teenagers emerge, or would the regulatory regime be as leaky as the present one for alcohol and tobacco? A “yes” answer to either question would lessen the attractiveness of legalization.

What about the International Repercussions?

Not surprisingly, the wider international ramifications of drug legalization have also gone largely unremarked. Here too a long set of questions remains to be addressed. Given the longstanding U.S. role as the principal sponsor of international drug control measures, how would a decision to move toward legalizing drugs affect other countries? What would become of the extensive regime of multilateral conventions and bilateral agreements? Would every nation have to conform to a new set of rules? If not, what would happen? Would more permissive countries be suddenly swamped by drugs and drug consumers, or would traffickers focus on the countries where tighter restrictions kept profits higher? This is not an abstract question. The Netherlands’ liberal drug policy has attracted an influx of “drug tourists” from neighboring countries, as did the city of Zurich’s following the now abandoned experiment allowing an open drug market to operate in what became known as “Needle Park.” And while it is conceivable that affluent countries could soften the worst consequences of drug legalization through extensive public prevention and drug treatment programs, what about poorer countries?

Finally, what would happen to the principal suppliers of illicit drugs if restrictions on the commercial sale of these drugs were lifted in some or all of the main markets? Would the trafficking organizations adapt and become legal businesses or turn to other illicit enterprises? What would happen to the source countries? Would they benefit or would new producers and manufacturers suddenly spring up elsewhere? Such questions have not even been posed in a systematic way, let alone seriously studied.

Irreducible Uncertainties

Although greater precision in defining more permissive regulatory regimes is critical to evaluating their potential costs and benefits, it will not resolve the uncertainties that exist. Only implementation will do that. Because small-scale experimentation (assuming a particular locality’s consent to be a guinea pig) would inevitably invite complaints that the results were biased or inconclusive, implementation would presumably have to be widespread, even global, in nature.

Yet jettisoning nearly a century of prohibition when the putative benefits remain so uncertain and the potential costs are so high would require a herculean leap of faith. Only an extremely severe and widespread deterioration of the current drug situation, nationally and internationally—is likely to produce the consensus—again, nationally and internationally that could impel such a leap. Even then the legislative challenge would be stupendous. The debate over how to set the conditions for controlling access to each of a dozen popular drugs could consume the legislatures of the major industrial countries for years.

None of this should deter further analysis of drug legalization. In particular, a rigorous assessment of a range of hypothetical regulatory regimes according to a common set of variables would clarify their potential costs, benefits, and trade- offs. Besides instilling much-needed rigor into any further discussion of the legalization alternative, such analysis could encourage the same level of scrutiny of current drug control programs and policies. With the situation apparently deteriorating in the United States as well as abroad, there is no better time for a fundamental reassessment of whether our existing responses to this problem are sufficient to meet the likely challenges ahead.

Governance Studies

William A. Galston, Elaine Kamarck

June 28, 2024

Howard Henderson

June 27, 2024

AEI, Washington DC

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• v.335(7627); 2007 Nov 10

Head to Head

Should drugs be decriminalised yes, kailash chand.

Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire OL6 9QH

Recent government figures suggest that the UK drug treatment programmes have had limited success in rehabilitating drug users, leading to calls for decriminalisation from some parties. Kailash Chand believes that this is the best way to reduce the harm drugs cause, but Joseph Califano thinks not

There is a way that the UK government could more than halve the prison population, prevent burglaries and prostitution, rip the heart out of organised crime, and free up millions of hours of police time. Yet politicians, terrified of the rightwing press, would never dare to suggest the legalisation, regulation, and control of the drugs market, even though it could save lives and bring an end to the needless criminalisation of some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Even downgrading cannabis—a tiny step in the right direction—is now being reconsidered.

Prohibition drives crime

Prohibition as a policy has failed. Just look at the US, where hundreds of thousands of people have been jailed and, despite billions of pounds of funding for draconian policies, higher purity drugs continue to flood the market.

Many of the violent criminal gangs owe their existence to the burgeoning, underground drug market. It is they—and not the governments—who control this trade and it is their turf wars that fuel gun crime. Transform—an influential drug policy foundation that has campaigned against prohibition—reports that the annual trade controlled by the gangs is more than £100bn. 1 It also points to the fact that the policy drives crime among desperate low income addicts.

You only have to walk through the UK's many red light districts to see the effect of heroin addiction. Young women, putting themselves at grave danger, as they sell their bodies in return for enough cash to fund their next hit. Then there are the prisons overflowing. 2

Benefits of decriminalisation

Decriminalising drugs has paid off in the Netherlands. Decriminalisation of heroin and other hard drugs has allowed addicts to be treated as patients. As a result hardly any new heroin addicts are registered, 3 while existing users are supported and have been helped to get jobs.

Drugs could easily be regulated in the same manner that alcohol and tobacco are regulated and, more importantly, heavily taxed. The price could still be substantially less than current prices on the illicit market, 4 and the revenue generated from the regulation could then be funnelled into education and other rehabilitation programmes. Educating children at an early age is the best weapon we have to combat the drug problems we face today. It would give children the tools to make intelligent and healthy choices in the future. And instead of turning drug addicts back to the streets, investing in rehabilitation programmes would not only help the addicts, but help society.

Many people may think that taking drugs is inherently wrong and so should be illegal. But there is a question of effectiveness—does making it illegal stop people doing it? The answer is clearly no. One could even argue that legalisation would eliminate part of the attraction of taking drugs—the allure of doing something illegal.

Increased harm

The illegal status adds to the dangers of drug taking. Instead of buying a joint from a safe outlet where the toxicity can be monitored and maintained, a young person who wants to smoke cannabis has to take to the streets and buy it from a violent dealer, who suggests that she instead tries ecstasy, crack cocaine, or heroin. Moreover, all that is available (so I am told in many cities) is super strong varieties such as skunk. Purity of cocaine in the UK has fallen steeply as suppliers cut the drugs with other substances. 5 And over 70 people in the UK died from a single dose of bacterially infected heroin in 2000. 6 Regulation could control the process and greatly reduce the dangers of impure drugs.

Then there is the bloody chain back to the original supplier. Countries like Afghanistan, Columbia, and Jamaica have had their economies rocked and destabilised by the illegal market while bribery, corruption, and conflict have ruled.

In the UK we have cut off huge swathes of the population, branding them criminals and creating an underclass of people who no longer feel part of our society. A sensible policy of regulation and control would reduce burglary, cut gun crime, bring women off the streets, clear out our overflowing prisons, and raise billions in tax revenues. Drug users could buy from places where they could be sure the drugs had not been cut with dangerous, cost saving chemicals. There would be clear information about the risks involved and guidance on how to seek treatment. It is time to allow adults the freedom to make decisions about the harmful substances they consume.

Competing interests: None declared.

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On Moral Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use

Rob lovering considers some of the arguments, and what they amount to..

December 5, 2015, marked the eighty-second anniversary of the United States’ repeal of the National Prohibition Act, an erstwhile constitutional ban on ‘intoxicating beverages’. The Act’s repeal did not bring an end in the U.S. to the legal prohibition of every intoxicating substance, of course – the recreational use of cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and many other intoxicating substances remains illegal; but it did reinstate alcohol as one of many intoxicating substances – of many drugs , lest there be any confusion – that Americans are legally permitted to use recreationally. The list also includes caffeine and nicotine.

One might wonder why all countries currently legally permit the recreational use of some drugs, such as caffeine, nicotine, and (usually) alcohol, but prohibit the recreational use of others, such as cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and (usually) marijuana. The answer lies not simply in the harm the use of these drugs might cause, but in the perceived immorality of their use. As former U.S. Drug Czar William Bennett once put it, “I find no merit in the legalizers’ case. The simple fact is that drug use is wrong. And the moral argument, in the end, is the most compelling argument” ( Drugs: Should We Legalize, Decriminalize or Deregulate? , ed. Jeffrey A. Schaler, 1998, p.65). Yet, despite strong rhetoric from the prohibitionists, it is surprisingly difficult to discern their reasons for believing that the recreational use of certain drugs is morally wrong. Most of the time, no reasons are even provided: it is simply declared, à la Bennett, that using some drugs recreationally is morally impermissible.

This is not to say that there are no reasons for believing that using some drugs recreationally is wrong. Indeed, there is a wide array of arguments for the immorality of certain recreational drug use, ranging from the philosophically rudimentary to the philosophically sophisticated. But the vast majority of these arguments are unsuccessful, and those that succeed are quite limited in scope.

Some Rudimentary Arguments

Take, for example, one of the philosophically rudimentary arguments: Recreational drug use is generally unhealthy for the user; therefore, recreational drug use is wrong.

Now it is true that recreational drug use is generally unhealthy for the user in one respect or another, to one degree or another. Just how unhealthy it is for the user depends not only on which drug, but on the amount and frequency of its use, the manner in which it is administered, the health of the person using it, and more. In any case, there is little question that recreational drug use is generally unhealthy for the user.

But does it follow then that recreational drug use is wrong ? It does if the mere fact that an activity is generally unhealthy – or, more broadly, generally harmful – to the one who engages in it renders that activity morally wrong. However, this idea is very difficult to justify. Indeed, there seem to be conditions under which harming oneself, even damaging one’s health, does not involve wrongdoing, such as when the harm is done with one’s voluntary, informed consent. From boxing to BASE jumping, playing contact sports to mixed martial arts, snowboarding to bull-riding – each of these activities can be and often is unhealthy to the individuals who engage in them; but none of them seem to be thereby morally wrong when those engaging in them do so with their voluntary, informed consent. Imprudent, perhaps, but not immoral. Or consider people who eat unhealthy food and refuse to exercise. Their voluntary and informed eating of unhealthy food and refusing to exercise does not seem to be morally wrong in and of itself.

Here’s another philosophically rudimentary argument: Recreational drug use is unnatural; therefore, recreational drug use is wrong.

Now there are at least seven different meanings of ‘unnatural’ that one may employ in this argument: statistically abnormal or unusual; not practiced by nonhuman animals; does not proceed from an innate desire; violates an organ’s principal purpose; gross or disgusting; artificial; and contrary to divine intention. But regardless of which meaning is employed, this argument is also unsuccessful.

Consider just one meaning of ‘unnatural’: ‘artificial’. What’s typically meant by the claim that recreational drug use is artificial is that it involves inducing mental states that would not have occurred were it not for human intervention or contrivance. But what’s wrong with artificially inducing mental states? This is precisely what individuals taking medication for depression or bipolar disorder do; yet hardly anyone believes that taking medication for depression or bipolar disorder is wrong. Granted, artificially inducing mental states for depression or bipolar disorder differs from artificially inducing mental states for recreational purposes in a particular and perhaps morally significant way: the former use is medical in nature while the latter is not. But if the claim, as here, is simply that it is wrong to artificially induce mental states, then why the mental states are artificially induced makes no difference to the argument. Furthermore, even if the reason the mental states are artificially induced were relevant to the argument, this would not necessarily entail that artificially inducing mental states for recreational purposes renders doing so wrong. Indeed, we have good reasons to think that artificially inducing mental states for recreational purposes is morally permissible in some cases: by way of listening to music or reading a novel, for instance. Both the music and the novel are products of human contrivance. To that extent, the mental states induced by listening to music or reading a novel are induced artificially. Nevertheless, there seems to be nothing immoral about artificially inducing mental states by doing either of these things.

There are many other philosophically rudimentary arguments: one grounds the supposed wrongness of recreational drug use in the claim that it squanders the user’s talents; another in the claim that the pleasure of recreational drug use is unearned, and so on – but let this suffice for now. Equivalent analogies can be cited to show why these other arguments don’t work either.

More Sophisticated Arguments

More philosophically sophisticated arguments for the moral wrongness of certain recreational drug use fare no better. Consider the following argument: By using drugs recreationally, the user instrumentalizes himself; therefore, recreational drug use is wrong. To instrumentalize oneself is to use oneself for a purpose to which one, as a rational moral agent, cannot in principle agree. (A rational moral agent is someone who can think in terms of moral reasons and act on that basis.) Most simply put, to instrumentalize oneself is to agree to behavior to which one could not rationally assent. For instance, if Joe necessarily desires x , then Joe cannot rationally agree to behavior that thwarts x , since doing so would involve contradicting himself – for were Joe to assent to behavior that thwarts that which he necessarily desires, Joe would be at once desiring both x and not- x .

So, does recreational drug use involve using oneself for a purpose to which one cannot in principle agree? That depends on what the purpose of recreational drug use is. This, in turn, depends partly on the drug in question. For the sake of space, let us consider the recreational use of just one drug: marijuana.

Typically, the purpose of using marijuana recreationally is to get high. The question, then, is whether the marijuana user can in principle rationally agree to the end of getting high. At first glance, it appears she can – the individual agreeing to get high does not on the face of things seem to be contradicting herself in doing so. But to be sure about this, we need to determine whether a pot smoker necessarily desires something that getting high thwarts.

Although lots of things might be proposed here, but again for the sake of space, I will consider just one: Perhaps as a rational moral agent, the pot smoker necessarily desires all that is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency. And it may be that not being high – in a word, sobriety – is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency. Two questions now arise: do rational moral agents necessarily desire all that is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency? And, is sobriety required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency?

Properly addressing the first question would involve a lengthy digression into the nature of rational moral agency. Instead, I will simply assume that rational moral agents do necessarily desire all that is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency.

This brings us to the second question: Is sobriety required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency? Arguably not . To be sure, sobriety may be required for the optimal exercise of rational moral agency, but it is not required for the exercise, much less the preservation, of rational moral agency. The high individual can and typically does think in terms of moral reasons and act on that basis. As Jeffrey Reiman writes, “Even drug-beclouded individuals know the difference between right and wrong and can understand when they are hurting others and so on” ( Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory & Practice , 1997, p.89).

Getting high, then, does not necessarily thwart all that is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency. Accordingly, the marijuana user can indeed agree in principle to the end of getting high, even given that she necessarily desires all that is required for the preservation and exercise of rational moral agency. Substitute alcohol, cocaine, heroin, or ecstasy for marijuana here, and similar arguments may be proffered for the view that users of these drugs can also agree in principle to the end of these drugs’ intoxicating effects – at least up to the point of the incapacity of rational thought.

Another philosophically sophisticated argument for the wrongness of recreational drug use is worth mentioning, given its popularity: By using drugs recreationally, the user may become addicted and thereby diminish his autonomy; therefore, recreational drug use is wrong.

Perhaps the most important word in this argument is ‘autonomy’. And although there are many definitions of this word, for present purposes we will use ‘the capacity to govern oneself’.

It is clear that, generally speaking, recreational drug users may become addicted to their drug of choice. Indeed, in Drug Legalization: For and Against (eds. Rod L. Evans and Irwin M. Berent, 1994), psychiatrist Michael Gazzaniga estimates that there is a ten per cent chance that any user of any drug will become addicted to it.

To what extent a drug is addictive may be determined in a number of ways, two of the more common ways being by establishing how likely it is that an occasional user of a drug becomes a habitual user of it; and by establishing how difficult it is for the habitual user to quit (see for instance Jim Leitzel, Regulating Vice: Misguided Prohibitions and Realistic Controls , 2008, p.61). Under both methods, nicotine is considered the most addictive of commonly-used drugs. Marijuana is much less addictive. Alcohol, heroin, and cocaine all fall somewhere in between nicotine and marijuana. And some recreational drugs, such as LSD and other hallucinogens, are considered virtually non-addictive, if at all: as Brian Penrose writes, “Whatever else may be true of [hallucinogens], they’re more or less universally recognized as non-addictive” ( Regulating Vice ).

However, even given that recreational drug users may become addicted to their drug of choice, and, in turn, diminish their autonomy to a greater or lesser degree, this does not itself render recreational drug use wrong. After all, most of us diminish our capacity to govern ourselves from time to time in ways that appear to be morally innocuous. Consider someone who is having trouble sleeping and decides to take a sleeping pill. In doing so, the individual chooses a course of action that will result in the diminishing of his capacity to govern himself. But does he thereby do something morally impermissible? It seems not.

Of course, taking a sleeping pill involves the use of a drug. And since what is at issue here is the moral status of using drugs – recreationally, of course, but using drugs nonetheless – it might be helpful to invoke a case that does not involve the use of a drug. So consider enlisting in the military. Those who do so diminish their capacity to govern themselves rather severely – with respect to where and with whom one resides, when one goes to and gets out of bed, what and when one eats and drinks, whom one considers to be an enemy, whom one considers to be an ally, whose commands one deems authoritative and obeys, what one considers to be acceptable conduct, under what conditions one will kill another human being, and so on. Even so, it does not seem to be morally wrong to join the military – at least, not on the grounds that doing so diminishes one’s capacity to govern oneself. (It may be imprudent in some ways, of course.) This suggests that other cases involving a less-than-extreme diminishing of one’s capacity to govern oneself are not morally wrong either.

To be sure, the diminishing of one’s capacity to govern oneself that occurs through joining the military is not the result of using a drug. But again, this fact is inconsequential to the argument. If it is precisely the diminishing of one’s capacity to govern oneself that renders certain recreational drug use wrong, as is alleged here, then any activity that involves the diminishing of one’s capacity to govern oneself will also be wrong, regardless of the means by which this is achieved.

To make this clear, suppose that what makes murder morally impermissible is that it involves the intentional permanent destruction of an innocent individual’s consciousness against their will. On this supposition, any activity that involves the intentional permanent destruction of an innocent individual’s consciousness against their will should be morally impermissible – including the intentional rendering of an innocent individual permanently comatose against their will. The means by which the permanent destruction of the individual’s consciousness is achieved is different in the comatose case, of course; but it is the permanent destruction of the individual’s consciousness nonetheless – so rendering someone comatose will be wrong for the same reason that murder is wrong. Similarly, if diminishing one’s capacity to govern oneself is morally wrong in and of itself, then joining the military is thereby morally wrong. But this is implausible.

There are many other philosophically sophisticated arguments – one which grounds the wrongness of recreational drug use in the claim that it blocks basic goods; another which grounds it in the claim that it degrades the user, and so on – but the preceding considerations will do for now.

Much more can also be said about each of the arguments above, and I have done just that in my book A Moral Defense of Recreational Drug Use (2015). Suffice it to say that if the objections that I have raised against these arguments for the immorality of recreational drug use are cogent, then to that extent the moral case for legally prohibiting recreational drug use is undermined.

© Rob Lovering 2016

Rob Lovering is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. His book A Moral Defense of Recreational Drug Use is available from Palgrave Macmillan.

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Should drugs be legalized? Essay

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Incensed by the steadily growing number of deaths, crime and corruption created by illicit drug trade and use in the recent years, a number of persons drawn from both the government and the private sector have been calling for the legalization of drugs to curb the problems associated with the abuse and trade in drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

They argue that such a move would do more than any single act or policy in removing the biggest of society’s social and political problems. However, these calls are unfortunate and could throw an already grave problem completely out of hand. If examined carefully, it becomes clear that legalization of drugs would not bring a solution to any of the problems associated with drug abuse.

Proponents of the move to legalize argue that drug use should be an individual’s choice and the government should not control it in any way. This argument has two key shortcomings. First, we cannot just do anything we want with our bodies, just the same way a person cannot walk down the street naked, or say anything we want anywhere. The government has to step in at some point. Drug use is obviously more harmful than these two inconceivable acts.

Secondly, when people opt to do “whatever they want” with their bodies, such as drug use, it not only affects them, but also those around them (DEA, 2003). To put it practically, a driver who is ‘high’ on drugs puts the life of others on the road in danger. Such a person cannot operate machinery or even tend for their children and families as required of them. Therefore, the argument that every one has a right to do whatever they want with their bodies is simply misplaced.

Proponents of the debate to legalize drugs argue that this move will discourage drug use, citing a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction that the Dutch are the lowest users of cannabis. They attribute this to Netherlands’ soft stance on drugs which permits cannabis sale at coffee shops and the possession of not more than 5 grams of cannabis. However, this is a shallow argument.

The Dutch government’s soft policy on marijuana use has created a much bigger problem: the differentiation of markets between hard drug users and dealers (heroin, cocaine and amphetamines) and soft drug users (marijuana) (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2001).

Consequently, the number of marijuana users has fallen as most people have resorted to hard drugs, making the country a criminal center for illegal artificial drug manufacture, especially ecstasy, in addition to becoming a home for the production and export of marijuana breeds that have been reported to be ten times higher than normal (DEA, 2003). Besides, a 2001 study in Australia that found that prohibition deters drug abuse (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2001).

Drug laws are very important in keeping these harmful substances out of reach of children. As long as drugs laws are put in place, the prices will continue to be higher, beyond the reach of most underage persons and even youths. The link between pricing and rate of drug use among young adults is evident in alcohol and drug use.

Studies show that high prices of alcohol and cigarettes result into decline in use of the substances (DEA, 2003). In addition, legalization of drugs would encourage sellers to recruit children sellers who can easily convince their peers to use the substances, hence increasing drug penetration into society. As long as drugs are not legalized, such a move is very unlikely, or can occur only in small scales.

DEA (U.S. Department of Justice: Drug Enforcement Administration). (2003 ). Speaking out against Drug Legalization . Web.

NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. (2001). Does prohibition deter cannabis use? Web.

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Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.)

Prohibition has huge costs

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We've come a long way since Reefer Madness . Over the past two decades, 16 states have de-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll , 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization.

Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and "hard drugs."

That's understandable: Different drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances.

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But if the goal is to minimize harm — to people here and abroad — the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana.

In fact, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from skiing or snowboarding accidents ; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools ; more than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals ; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents ; and at least 38,000 from excessive alcohol use .

Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances.

The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use.

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That means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few abusive users would be better off.

And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of how harmful drugs might be.

First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects.

Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.

What's more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn't exist in a legal market. Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean needles (because this might "send the wrong message"). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV, Hepatitis C, and other blood-borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.

Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no-knock warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest rates for blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).

The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves. In a society that legalizes drugs, users face only the negatives of use. Under prohibition, they also risk arrest, fines, loss of professional licenses, and more. So prohibition unambiguously harms those who use despite prohibition.

It's also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit.

On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large-scale production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption.

To the extent prohibition does reduce use drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than for marijuana. That's because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana; for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the black market while having minimal impact on use.

But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.

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The most convincing argument for legalizing LSD, shrooms, and other psychedelics

by German Lopez

I have a profound fear of death. It's not bad enough to cause serious depression or anxiety. But it is bad enough to make me avoid thinking about the possibility of dying — to avoid a mini existential crisis in my mind.

But it turns out there may be a better cure for this fear than simply not thinking about it. It's not yoga, a new therapy program, or a medicine currently on the (legal) market. It's psychedelic drugs — LSD, ibogaine, and psilocybin, which is found in magic mushrooms.

This is the case for legalizing hallucinogens. Although the drugs have gotten some media attention in recent years for helping cancer patients deal with their fear of death and helping people quit smoking, there's also a similar potential boon for the nonmedical, even recreational psychedelic user. As hallucinogens get a renewed look by researchers, they're finding that the substances may improve almost anyone's mood and quality of life — as long as they're taken in the right setting, typically a controlled environment.

This isn't something that even drug policy reformers are comfortable calling for yet. "There's not any political momentum for that right now," Jag Davies, who focuses on hallucinogen research at the Drug Policy Alliance, said, citing the general public's views of psychedelics as extremely dangerous — close to drugs like crack cocaine, heroin, and meth.

But it's an idea that experts and researchers are taking more seriously. And while the studies are new and ongoing, and a national regulatory model for legal hallucinogens is practically nonexistent, the available research is very promising — enough to reconsider the demonization and prohibition of these potentially amazing drugs.

Hallucinogens' potentially huge benefit: ego death

Mushroom, mushroom.

The most remarkable potential benefit of hallucinogens is what's called "ego death," an experience in which people lose their sense of self-identity and, as a result, are able to detach themselves from worldly concerns like a fear of death, addiction, and anxiety over temporary — perhaps exaggerated — life events.

When people take a potent dose of a psychedelic, they can experience spiritual, hallucinogenic trips that can make them feel like they're transcending their own bodies and even time and space. This, in turn, gives people a lot of perspective — if they can see themselves as a small part of a much broader universe, it's a lot easier for them to discard personal, relatively insignificant and inconsequential concerns about their own lives and death.

That may sound like pseudoscience. And the research on hallucinogens is so early that scientists don't fully grasp how it works. But it's a concept that's been found in some medical trials, and something that many people who've tried hallucinogens can vouch for experiencing. It's one of the reasons why preliminary , small studies and research from the 1950s and '60s found hallucinogens can treat — and maybe cure — addiction, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Charles Grob, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and pediatrics who studies psychedelics, conducted a study that gave psilocybin to late-stage cancer patients. "The reports I got back from the subjects, from their partners, from their families were very positive — that the experience was of great value, and it helped them regain a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning to their life," he told me in 2014. "The quality of their lives notably improved."

In a fantastic look at the research, Michael Pollan at the New Yorker captured the phenomenon through the stories of cancer patients who participated in hallucinogen trials:

Death looms large in the journeys taken by the cancer patients. A woman I'll call Deborah Ames, a breast-cancer survivor in her sixties (she asked not to be identified), described zipping through space as if in a video game until she arrived at the wall of a crematorium and realized, with a fright, "I've died and now I'm going to be cremated. The next thing I know, I'm below the ground in this gorgeous forest, deep woods, loamy and brown. There are roots all around me and I'm seeing the trees growing, and I'm part of them. It didn't feel sad or happy, just natural, contented, peaceful. I wasn't gone. I was part of the earth." Several patients described edging up to the precipice of death and looking over to the other side. Tammy Burgess, given a diagnosis of ovarian cancer at fifty-five, found herself gazing across "the great plain of consciousness. It was very serene and beautiful. I felt alone but I could reach out and touch anyone I'd ever known. When my time came, that's where my life would go once it left me and that was O.K."

But Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at New York University's Marron Institute, noted that these benefits don't apply only to terminally ill patients. The studies conducted so far have found benefits that apply to anyone : a reduced fear of death, greater psychological openness, and increased life satisfaction.

"It's not required to have a disease to be afraid of dying," Kleiman said. "But it's probably an undesirable condition if you have the alternative available. And there's now some evidence that these experiences can make the person less afraid to die."

Kleiman added, "The obvious application is people who are currently dying with a terminal diagnosis. But being born is a terminal diagnosis. And people's lives might be better if they live out of the valley of the shadow of death."

Again, the current research on all of this is early, with much of the science still relying on studies from the '50s and '60s. But the most recent preliminary findings are promising enough that experts like Kleiman are cautiously considering how to build a model that would let people take these potentially beneficial drugs legally — while also acknowledging that psychedelics do pose some big risks.

The two big risks of hallucinogens: accidents and bad trips

Charles Grob, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, is leading the way in psychedelic research.

Hallucinogens aren't perfectly safe, but they're not dangerous in the way some people might think. As Grob previously told me , there's little to no chance that someone will become addicted to psychedelics — they're not physically addictive like heroin or tobacco, and the experiences are so demanding and draining that a great majority of people simply won't be interested in constantly taking the drugs. He also said that hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, which can cause the disturbances widely known as "flashbacks," is "uncommon, but you will see it, particularly among someone who has taken hallucinogens a lot."

Kleiman drew a comparison to marijuana to explain the risks. "The risk with cannabis is, primarily, that you lose control of your cannabis taking," he said. "The risk with LSD is primarily that you'll do something stupid to ruin the experience, or you'll have such a scary experience that it'll leave you damaged. But those are safety risks rather than addiction risks."

This gets to the two major dangers of hallucinogens: accidents and bad trips. The first risk is similar to what you'd expect from other drugs: When people are intoxicated in any way, they're more prone to doing bad, dumb things. As Kleiman explained, "People take LSD and think they can fly and jump off buildings. It's true that it's a drug warrior fairy tale, but it's also true in that it actually happens. People drop acid and run out in traffic. People do stupid shit under high doses of psychedelics."

Bad trips are also a concern. A bad psychedelic experience can result in psychotic episodes, a lost sense of reality, and even long-term psychological trauma in very rare situations, especially among people using other drugs or with a history of mental health issues. Just like psychedelics can lead to long-term psychological benefits, they can lead to long-term psychological pain.

These risks are why not many people are seriously discussing legalizing hallucinogens in the same way the US allows alcohol or is now beginning to allow marijuana. But the potential benefits of hallucinogens are leading some experts to consider how these drugs could be legalized in some capacity.

"I think it's a bad idea to treat hallucinogens like we treat cocaine or cannabis," Kleiman said. "They pose different risks and offer different benefits." He added, "But I don't think we're ever going to free these substances from careful legal control."

How hallucinogens can be legalized

Drop some LSD — but maybe only in a controlled environment.

So how can you maximize the benefits and minimize the risks? The most convincing idea so far is letting people take psychedelics in a controlled setting, in which multiple participants can be watched over by trained supervisors who ensure the experience doesn't go poorly.

So far, this is what the medical side has focused on: The typical medical trial involves doctors watching over a deathly ill patient or someone dealing with addiction who takes psilocybin. But if the concept is expanded to allow nonmedical users, then perhaps professionals who aren't doctors but are trained in guiding someone through a trip could take up the role. "I imagine someone who has training in managing that experience, and a license, and liability insurance, and a facility," Kleiman said.

Here's how it would work: A psychedelic user would go through some sort of preparation period to make sure she knows what she's getting into. Then she could make an appointment at a place offering these services. She would show up at this appointment, take the drug of her choice (or whatever the facility provides), and wait to allow it to kick in. As the trip occurs, a supervisor would watch over the user — not being too pushy, but making sure he's available to guide her through any rough spots. In some studies, doctors have also prepared certain activities — a soundtrack or food, for example — that may help set the right mood and setting for someone on psychedelics. Different places will likely experiment with different approaches, including how many people can participate at once and how a room should look.

The most convincing idea so far is letting people take psychedelics in a controlled setting

Kleiman also envisions a potential system in which people can eventually graduate to using the drug solo. "It's like Red Cross water safety instruction," he said. "You start out, you're a newbie. You don't go into the pool without a trained, certified person to watch you, guide you, and keep you safe. After a while, your teacher gives you a test to certify that you're safe to be in the water alone. And you might even get certified to become a trainer, so you can guide newbies yourself."

If pulled off correctly, this would maximize the best possible outcomes and minimize the worst. Supervisors could help prevent accidents, and they could walk people through good and bad trips, letting users relax and get something meaningful out of the experience.

There are risks to the controlled setting. If a supervisor is poorly trained or malicious, it could lead to a horrific trip that could actually worsen someone's mental state. This is why regulation and licensing will be crucial to getting the idea right.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, argued for a looser model that could, for example, allow psychedelics to be sold over the counter. "You dramatically decrease the black market. So long as you have people who have to go through some sort of gatekeeper, or who can be denied, you're going to continue to have a black market," Nadelmann said. "Secondly, this means the percent of consumers who got a product of known potency and purity from a reliable source would increase."

But the black market demand for psychedelics is very small, with only 0.5 percent of Americans 12 and older in 2013 saying they used hallucinogens in the past month. So allowing over-the-counter sales would likely have a tiny benefit at best on public health and criminal groups' profits from the black market.

The debate about which model works best will likely go on for some time, especially if different places test different approaches. There's no doubt it will be tricky to hash out exactly how to legalize and regulate these drugs, as some states are learning with marijuana .

But if we know the benefits to public health and well-being are real, it's irresponsible to let the potential go untapped. It may soon be time for America to seriously consider legalizing LSD, magic mushrooms, and other psychedelic drugs.

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Against Drug Prohibition

More and more ordinary people, elected officials, newspaper columnists, economists, doctors, judges and even the Surgeon General of the United States are concluding that the effects of our drug control policy are at least as harmful as the effects of drugs themselves.

After decades of criminal prohibition and intensive law enforcement efforts to rid the country of illegal drugs, violent traffickers still endanger life in our cities, a steady stream of drug offenders still pours into our jails and prisons, and tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana still cross our borders unimpeded.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise law-abiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for what they do in private. In trying to enforce the drug laws, the government violates the fundamental rights of privacy and personal autonomy that are guaranteed by our Constitution. The ACLU believes that unless they do harm to others, people should not be punished — even if they do harm to themselves. There are better ways to control drug use, ways that will ultimately lead to a healthier, freer and less crime-ridden society.

Currently Illegal Drugs Have Not Always Been Illegal

During the Civil War, morphine (an opium derivative and cousin of heroin) was found to have pain-killing properties and soon became the main ingredient in several patent medicines. In the late 19th century, marijuana and cocaine were put to various medicinal uses — marijuana to treat migraines, rheumatism and insomnia, and cocaine to treat sinusitis, hay fever and chronic fatigue. All of these drugs were also used recreationally, and cocaine, in particular, was a common incredient in wines and soda pop — including the popular Coca Cola.

At the turn of the century, many drugs were made illegal when a mood of temperance swept the nation. In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, banning opiates and cocaine. Alcohol prohibition quickly followed, and by 1918 the U.S. was officially a “dry” nation. That did not mean, however, an end to drug use. It meant that, suddenly, people were arrested and jailed for doing what they had previously done without government interference. Prohibition also meant the emergence of a black market, operated by criminals and marked by violence.

In 1933, because of concern over widespread organized crime, police corruption and violence, the public demanded repeal of alcohol prohibition and the return of regulatory power to the states. Most states immediately replaced criminal bans with laws regulating the quality, potency and commercial sale of alcohol; as a result, the harms associated with alcohol prohibition disappeared. Meanwhile, federal prohibition of heroin and cocaine remained, and with passage of the Marijuana Stamp Act in 1937 marijuana was prohibited as well. Federal drug policy has remained strictly prohibitionist to this day.

Decades of Drug Prohibition: A History of Failure

Criminal prohibition, the centerpiece of U.S. drug policy, has failed miserably. Since 1981, tax dollars to the tune of $150 billion have been spent trying to prevent Columbian cocaine, Burmese heroin and Jamaican marijuana from penetrating our borders. Yet the evidence is that for every ton seized, hundreds more get through. Hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding people have been arrested and jailed for drug possession. Between 1968 and 1992, the annual number of drug-related arrests increased from 200,000 to over 1.2 million. One-third of those were marijuana arrests, most for mere possession.

The best evidence of prohibition’s failure is the government’s current war on drugs. This war, instead of employing a strategy of prevention, research, education and social programs designed to address problems such as permanent poverty, long term unemployment and deteriorating living conditions in our inner cities, has employed a strategy of law enforcement. While this military approach continues to devour billions of tax dollars and sends tens of thousands of people to prison, illegal drug trafficking thrives, violence escalates and drug abuse continues to debilitate lives. Compounding these problems is the largely unchecked spread of the AIDS virus among drug-users, their sexual partners and their offspring.

Those who benefit the most from prohibition are organized crime barons, who derive an estimated $10 to $50 billion a year from the illegal drug trade. Indeed, the criminal drug laws protect drug traffickers from taxation, regulation and quality control. Those laws also support artificially high prices and assure that commercial disputes among drug dealers and their customers will be settled not in courts of law, but with automatic weapons in the streets.

Drug Prohibition is a Public Health Menace

Drug prohibition promises a healthier society by denying people the opportunity to become drug users and, possibly, addicts. The reality of prohibition belies that promise.

No quality control. When drugs are illegal, the government cannot enact standards of quality, purity or potency. Consequently, street drugs are often contaminated or extremely potent, causing disease and sometimes death to those who use them.

Dirty needles. Unsterilized needles are known to transmit HIV among intravenous drug users. Yet drug users share needles because laws prohibiting possession of drug paraphernalia have made needles a scarce commodity. These laws, then, actually promote epidemic disease and death. In New York City, more than 60 percent of intravenous drug users are HIV positive. By contrast, the figure is less than one percent in Liverpool, England, where clean needles are easily available.

Scarce treatment resources. The allocation of vast sums of money to law enforcement diminishes the funds available for drug education, preventive social programs and treatment. As crack use rose during the late 1980s, millions of dollars were spent on street-level drug enforcement and on jailing tens of thousands of low level offenders, while only a handful of public drug treatment slots were created. An especially needy group — low-income pregnant women who abused crack — often had no place to go at all because Medicaid would not reimburse providers. Instead, the government prosecuted and jailed such women without regard to the negative consequences for their children.

Drug Prohibition Creates More Problems Than It Solves

Drug prohibition has not only failed to curb or reduce the harmful effects of drug use, it has created other serious social problems.

Caught in the crossfire. In the same way that alcohol prohibition fueled violent gangsterism in the 1920s, today’s drug prohibition has spawned a culture of drive-by shootings and other gun-related crimes. And just as most of the 1920s violence was not committed by people who were drunk, most of the drug-related violence today is not committed by people who are high on drugs. The killings, then and now, are based on rivalries: Al Capone ordered the executions of rival bootleggers, and drug dealers kill their rivals today. A 1989 government study of all 193 “cocaine-related” homicides in New York City found that 87 percent grew out of rivalries and disagreements related to doing business in an illegal market. In only one case was the perpetrator actually under the influence of cocaine.

A Nation of Jailers. The “lock ’em up” mentality of the war on drugs has burdened our criminal justice system to the breaking point. Today, drug-law enforcement consumes more than half of all police resources nationwide, resources that could be better spent fighting violent crimes like rape, assault and robbery.

The recent steep climb in our incarceration rate has made the U.S. the world’s leading jailer, with a prison population that now exceeds one million people, compared to approximately 200,000 in 1970. Nonviolent drug offenders make up 58 percent of the federal prison population, a population that is extremely costly to maintain. In 1990, the states alone paid $12 billion, or $16,000 per prisoner. While drug imprisonments are a leading cause of rising local tax burdens, they have neither stopped the sale and use of drugs nor enhanced public safety.

Not Drug Free — Just Less Free. We now have what some constitutional scholars call “the drug exception to the Bill of Rights.” Random drug testing without probable cause, the militarization of drug law enforcement, heightened wiretapping and other surveillance, the enactment of vaguely worded loitering laws and curfews, forfeiture of people’s homes and assets, excessive and mandatory prison terms — these practices and more have eroded the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Prohibition Is A Destructive Force In Inner City Communities

Inner city communities suffer most from both the problem of drug abuse and the consequences of drug prohibition.

Although the rates of drug use among white and non-white Americans are similar, African Americans and other racial minorities are arrested and imprisoned at higher rates. For example, according to government estimates only 12 percent of drug users are black, but nearly 40 percent of those arrested for drug offenses are black. Nationwide, one-quarter of all young African American men are under some form of criminal justice supervision, mostly for drug offenses. This phenomenon has had a devastating social impact in minority communities. Moreover, the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, has more dire consequences in impoverished communities where good treatment programs are least available.

Finally, turf battles and commercial disputes among competing drug enterprises, as well as police responses to those conflicts, occur disproportionately in poor communities, making our inner cities war zones and their residents the war’s primary casualties.

Drugs Are Here to Stay — Let’s Reduce Their Harm

The universality of drug use throughout human history has led some experts to conclude that the desire to alter consciousness, for whatever reasons, is a basic human drive. People in almost all cultures, in every era, have used psychoactive drugs. Native South Americans take coca-breaks the way we, in this country, take coffee-breaks. Native North Americans use peyote and tobacco in their religious ceremonies the way Europeans use wine. Alcohol is the drug of choice in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, while many Muslim countries tolerate the use of opium and marijuana.

A “drug free America” is not a realistic goal, and by criminally banning psychoactive drugs the government has ceded all control of potentially dangerous substances to criminals. Instead of trying to stamp out all drug use, our government should focus on reducing drug abuse and prohibition-generated crime. This requires a fundamental change in public policy: repeal of criminal prohibition and the creation of a reasonable regulatory system.

Ending Prohibition Would Not Necessarily Increase Drug Abuse

While it is impossible to predict exactly how drug use patterns would change under a system of regulated manufacture and distribution, the iron rules of prohibition are that 1) illegal markets are controlled by producers, not consumers, and 2) prohibition fosters the sale and consumption of more potent and dangerous forms of drugs.

During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, bootleggers marketed small bottles of 100-plus proof liquor because they were easier to conceal than were large, unwieldy kegs of beer. The result: Consumption of beer and wine went down while consumption of hard hard liquor went up. Similarly, contemporary drug smugglers’ preference for powdered cocaine over bulky, pungent coca leaves encourages use of the most potent and dangerous cocaine products. In contrast, under legal conditions, consumers — most of whom do not wish to harm themselves — play a role in determining the potency of marketed products, as indicated by the popularity of today’s light beers, wine coolers and decaffeinated coffees.Once alcohol prohibition was repealed, consumption increased somewhat, but the rate of liver cirrhosis went down because people tended to choose beer and wine over the more potent, distilled spirits previously promoted by bootleggers. So, even though the number of drinkers went up, the health risks of drinking went down. The same dynamic would most likely occur with drug legalization: some increase in drug use, but a decrease in drug abuse.

Another factor to consider is the lure of forbidden fruit. For young people, who are often attracted to taboos, legal drugs might be less tempting than they are now. That has been the experience of The Netherlands: After the Dutch government decriminalized marijuana in 1976, allowing it to be sold and consumed openly in small amounts, usage steadily declined — particularly among teenagers and young adults. Prior to decriminalization, 10 percent of Dutch 17- and 18-year-olds used marijuana. By 1985, that figure had dropped to 6.5 percent.

Would drugs be more available once prohibition is repealed? It is hard to imagine drugs being more available than they are today. Despite efforts to stem their flow, drugs are accessible to anyone who wants them. In a recent government-sponsored survey of high school seniors, 55 percent said it would be “easy” for them to obtain cocaine, and 85 percent said it would be “easy” for them to obtain marijuana. In our inner-cities, access to drugs is especially easy, and the risk of arrest has proven to have a negligible deterrent effect. What would change under decriminalization is not so much drug availability as the conditions under which drugs would be available. Without prohibition, providing help to drug abusers who wanted to kick their habits would be easier because the money now being squandered on law enforcement could be used for preventive social programs and treatment.

What The United States Would Look Like After Repeal

Some people, hearing the words “drug legalization,” imagine pushers on street corners passing out cocaine to anyone — even children. But that is what exists today under prohibition. Consider the legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco: Their potency, time and place of sale and purchasing age limits are set by law. Similarly, warning labels are required on medicinal drugs, and some of these are available by prescription only.

After federal alcohol prohibition was repealed, each state developed its own system for regulating the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. The same could occur with currently illegal drugs. For example, states could create different regulations for marijuana, heroin and cocaine.

Ending prohibition is not a panacea. It will not by itself end drug abuse or eliminate violence. Nor will it bring about the social and economic revitalization of our inner cities. However, ending prohibition would bring one very significant benefit: It would sever the connection between drugs and crime that today blights so many lives and communities. In the long run, ending prohibition could foster the redirection of public resources toward social development, legitimate economic opportunities and effective treatment, thus enhancing the safety, health and well-being of the entire society.

What You Can Do

You can help bring about drug policy reform:

• Demand candid discussion of alternatives to prohibition by public officials.
• Break the silence — write letters to your elected representatives and letters-to-the-editor of your local newspaper.
• Support incremental harm-reduction measures like needle exchange programs and medical marijuana legislation.
• Use this briefing paper to raise the consciousness of your friends and co-workers.

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The Spotlight on Steroids and Sports

Should we accept steroid use in sports.

Jeffrey Katz

The Edited Broadcast of the Debate

Fans hold up a sign during a 2004 game between the New York Mets and the San Francisco Giants. Giants slugger Barry Bonds has long been accused of steroid use. Al Bello/Getty Images hide caption

Fans hold up a sign during a 2004 game between the New York Mets and the San Francisco Giants. Giants slugger Barry Bonds has long been accused of steroid use.

Hear the Full Debate

The unedited debate (1 hour, 52 minutes), read bios of the debate panelists.

Produced for broadcast by WNYC, New York.

The next debate , on the proposition "America Should Be the World's Policeman," takes place Feb. 12.

The debate over athletes' use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs has taken on newfound urgency in recent months.

A report by former Sen. George Mitchell, released in December, mentioned dozens of baseball players as having used steroids and described their use as "widespread." Track star Marion Jones pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about steroid use in October. And last summer, several riders were dismissed from the Tour de France on charges of using banned substances.

Those who oppose the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs say that the athletes who use them are breaking the rules and getting an unfair advantage over others. Opponents of the drugs say the athletes are endangering not only their own health, but also indirectly encouraging youngsters to do the same.

Others maintain that it is hypocritical for society to encourage consumers to seek drugs to treat all sorts of ailments and conditions but to disdain drug use for sports. They say the risk to athletes has been overstated and that the effort to keep them from using performance-enhancing drugs is bound to fail.

Six experts on steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs recently took on the issue in an Oxford-style debate, part of the series Intelligence Squared U.S. The debates are modeled on a program begun in London in 2002: Three experts argue in favor of a proposition and three argue against.

In the latest debate, held on Jan. 15, the formal proposition was, "We should accept performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sports."

As the debate began, it was announced that former Olympics sprinter Ben Johnson, who was scheduled to argue in favor of allowing drugs, had pulled out on the advice of his lawyer because of his involvement in a lawsuit. Johnson was stripped of his gold medal in the 1988 Olympics after testing positive for steroids.

In a vote before the debate, 18 percent of audience members supported the motion to accept performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sports, and 63 percent opposed it. Nineteen percent were undecided. After the debate, 37 percent of audience members agreed with the proposition. Fifty-nine percent opposed it, and 4 percent remained undecided.

The event was held at the Asia Society and Museum in New York City and moderated by longtime sportscaster Bob Costas, who hosts NBCs Football Night in America and HBOs Inside the NFL.

Highlights from the debate:

FOR THE MOTION

Radley Balko , a senior editor and investigative journalist for Reason magazine, says: "So what is this debate really all about? I'd suggest it's about paternalism, and it's about control. We have a full-blown moral panic on our hands here, and it's over a set of substances that, for whatever reason, has attracted the ire of the people who have made it their job to tell us what is and isn't good for us. Our society has an oddly schizophrenic relationship with pharmaceuticals and medical technology. If something could be said to be natural, we tend to be OK with it. If it's lab-made or synthetic, we tend to be leery. But even synthetic drugs and man-made technology seem to be OK if the aim is to make sick people better or broken people whole again."

Excerpt of Balko's argument.

Norman Fost , professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, says: "I ask you in the audience to quickly name, in your own minds, a single elite athlete who's had a stroke or a heart attack while playing sports. It's hard to come up with one. Anabolic steroids do have undesirable side effects: acne, baldness, voice changes ... infertility. But sport itself is far more dangerous, and we don't prohibit it. The number of deaths from playing professional football and college football are 50 to 100 times higher than even the wild exaggerations about steroids. More people have died playing baseball than have died of steroid use."

Excerpts of Fost's argument

Julian Savulescu , professor of practical ethics at the University of Oxford, says: "To say that we should reduce drugs in sport or eliminate them because they increase performance, is simply like saying that we should eliminate alcohol from parties because it increases sociability. So our proposal is that we allow a modest approach. ... Our proposal is enforceable, it frees up the limited resources to focus on drugs that may be affecting children, which we grant should not have access to drugs ... As we've argued, performance enhancement is not against the spirit of sport, it's been a part of sport through its whole history, and to be human is to be better, or at least to try to be better."

Excerpts of Savulescu's argument

Against the motion.

George Michael , a sportscaster and creator of the program Sports Machine , says: "I am not willing to pay the price for legalizing steroids and performance-enhancing drugs, because I've seen too often what it can do. I don't want to go to the cemetery and tell all the athletes who are dead there, 'Hey guys, soon you'll have a lot more of your friends coming, because we're going to legalize this stuff.' The only good news out of it? They wouldn't hear the news. Because they're all dead."

Excerpts of Michael's argument

Dale Murphy , a former Major League Baseball outfielder who started the iWon't Cheat Foundation to help rid sports of drugs, says: "We need better testing, harsher punishments and people will decide not to get involved with performance-enhancing drugs. Gambling in baseball is the perfect example. The culture of professional baseball players is the one thing they know, and one thing they learn from the minute they sign a professional contract, is that if you gamble on the game in any way, shape or form, your career will be over."

Excerpts of Murphy's argument.

Richard Pound , chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a partner in the Canadian law firm Stikeman Elliott, says: "The use of performance-enhancing drugs is not accidental; it is planned and deliberate with the sole objective of getting an unfair advantage. I don't want my kids, or your kids, or anybody's kids to have to turn themselves into chemical stockpiles just because there are cheaters out there who don't care what they promised when they started to participate. I don't want my kids in the hands of a coach who would encourage, condone or allow the use of drugs among his or her athletes."

Excerpts of Pound's argument.

The Intelligence Squared U.S. series is produced in New York City by The Rosenkranz Foundation and for broadcast by WNYC.

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Drug prohibition is fueling the overdose crisis: Regulating drugs is the way out

by Kora DeBeck, The Conversation

Should heroin and cocaine be legally available to people who need and want them? If we are serious about stopping the crisis of drug overdose deaths, that is exactly the kind of profound change we need. Yes, extensive regulations would be necessary. In fact, the whole point of regulating drug production and sales is that we can better control what is being sold and to whom.

After British Columbia's Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry testified to the all-party health committee in Ottawa in May that regulating these controlled drugs would minimize harms, B.C. Premier David Eby said he disagreed . He is quoted saying " in a reality-based, real-world level, (it) doesn't make any sense ." But does our current approach of drug prohibition "make sense?"

Since the overdose crisis was declared in 2016, illicit drug toxicity deaths have become the leading cause of unnatural death in B.C. and the leading cause of death from all causes for those aged 10 to 59. More than 44,000 people have died from drug poisoning in Canada since 2016, and more than one-third of those were in B.C. An average of 22 people are dying every day in Canada because the illicit supply of drugs is toxic.

Toxic drug supply

Why is the drug supply so toxic? Because we are letting organized crime manufacture drugs instead of regulated licensed industries that are required to follow health and safety standards.

In the context of drug prohibition, organized crime and drug cartels are incentivized to make highly potent products because it is cheaper and hence more profitable. This is what happened during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Organized crime ran rampant, and people were poisoned because there were no health and safety standards for production.

The failure of alcohol prohibition in meeting its key objectives of eliminating the supply and demand of alcohol are the same failures of drug prohibition . Illegal drugs are easy to find regardless of their illegal status. Reliable estimates are that 225,000 people are using illegal substances in B.C.

What is the way out? Our knowledge of research evidence and decades of collective experience—including as a researcher (Kora DeBeck), a B.C. provincial health officer (Perry Kendall) and chief coroner (Lisa Lapointe) during the overdose crisis—brings us to drug regulation. When we regulate a substance, we have the most control over its production, distribution and consumption.

Lessons from tobacco

Some may argue that regulating drugs sends the "wrong message" and will encourage drug use , most concerningly among young people. However, if we look to lessons from tobacco regulation, we can see that public health-based regulations can actually be strong and effective substance-use deterrents.

By strictly controlling tobacco marketing, packaging, purchase price, purchase age and consumption locations alongside educating people about the health risks, tobacco consumption and associated health harms have been significantly reduced without all the additional risks of banning tobacco products (for example, criminal black markets controlling production and sales).

The same kinds of regulatory tools would be available to control the use of currently illegal drugs if we moved from prohibition to regulation.

Addiction treatment is not enough

But what about addiction treatment? Isn't that what we really need? While it's true that eliminating wait times and increasing access to effective, evidence-based treatment are critically important and much needed, the reality is that many people who use drugs don't have an addiction and many others are not currently seeking treatment . Yet all people who use drugs face the deadly consequences of an unregulated toxic drug supply.

It is also important to remember that addiction recovery is complex and relapse is common in the recovery journey . In today's toxic drug environment, people who relapse after a period of abstinence face a significantly higher risk of death due to their reduced tolerance . We also know that substance treatment is not regulated or standardized, and treatment outcomes are not reported.

While supporting people to recovery is important and can be lifesaving, addiction treatment is not the straightforward solution many believe it should be. Thousands of lives remain at risk every day.

A regulated drug supply

Taking the production and sale of currently illegal drugs away from organized crime and drug cartels is the most promising way to keep our kids and communities safe. With strict health and safety standards for the production of these drugs and stringent public health-based regulations on their distribution and sale, we have the best shot at reversing the carnage of overdose fatalities and managing drug-related harms.

Regulating drugs may seem to some like a radical proposition but governments regulate the production and distribution of potentially dangerous goods all the time. The regulation of firearms in Canada includes licensing that requires passing a firearms safety course . Mandatory ingredient lists that disclose the amount of sugar, sodium and fat in the foods we eat is another example of a government regulation that is designed to protect the public and provide information that may shape consumption patterns and reduce health risks .

Implementing an effective regulatory framework for currently illegal drugs will be a complex undertaking requiring close monitoring and evaluation and inevitably corrections and revisions along the way. While the task may appear daunting, allowing overdose deaths to continue at the current rate is unconscionable.

Transformational and life-saving drug regulation is urgently required because, borrowing terminology from Premier Eby, at the "reality-based, real-world level," our current approach is a catastrophic failure.

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Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

PhD Candidate (Psychiatry) & Research Assistant, University of Newcastle

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Nicole Lee works as a consultant in the health sector and a psychologist in private practice. She has previously received funding by Australian and state governments, NHMRC and other bodies for evaluation and research into alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment.

Brigid Clancy is an Associate at 360Edge, a drug and alcohol consultancy company.

University of Newcastle and Curtin University provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

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Vaping regularly makes headlines, with some campaigning to make e-cigarettes more available to help smokers quit, while others are keen to see vaping products banned, citing dangers, especially for teens.

So just how dangerous is it? We have undertaken an evidence check of vaping research . This included more than 100 sources on tobacco harm reduction, vaping prevalence and health effects, and what other countries are doing in response. Here’s what we found.

How does vaping compare to smoking?

Smoking is harmful. It’s the leading preventable cause of death in Australia. It causes 13% of all deaths , including from lung, mouth, throat and bladder cancer, emphysema, heart attack and stroke, to name just a few. People who smoke regularly and don’t quit lose about ten years of life compared with non-smokers.

Nicotine, a mild stimulant, is the active ingredient in both cigarettes and nicotine vaping products. It’s addictive but isn’t the cause of cancer or the other diseases related to smoking.

Ideally, people wouldn’t be addicted to nicotine, but having a safe supply without the deadly chemicals, for instance by using nicotine patches or gum, is safer than smoking. Making these other sources available is known as “harm reduction”.

Vaping is not risk-free, but several detailed reviews of the evidence plus a consensus of experts have all estimated it’s at least 95% safer to vape nicotine than to smoke tobacco. The risk of cancer from vaping, for example, has been estimated at less than 1%.

These reviews looked at the known dangerous chemicals in cigarettes, and found there were very few and in very small quantities in nicotine vapes. So the argument that we won’t see major health effects for a few more decades is causing more alarm than is necessary.

Is ‘everyone’ vaping these days?

Some are concerned about the use of vaping products by teens, but currently available statistics show very few teens vape regularly. Depending on the study, between 9.6% and 32% of 14-17-year-olds have tried vaping at some point in their lives.

But less than 2% of 14-17-year-olds say they have used vapes in the past year. This number doubled between 2016 and 2019, but is still much lower than the rates of teen smoking (3.2%) and teen alcohol use (32%).

It’s the same pattern we see with drugs other than alcohol: a proportion of people try them but only a very small proportion of those go on to use regularly or for a long time. Nearly 60% of people who try vaping only use once or twice .

Smoking rates in Australia have declined from 24% in 1991 to 11% in 2019 because we have introduced a number of very successful measures such as restricting sales and where people can smoke, putting up prices, introducing plain packaging, and improving education and access to treatment programs.

But it’s getting harder to encourage the remaining smokers to quit with the methods that have worked in the past. Those still smoking tend to be older , more socially disadvantaged , or have mental health problems.

Read more: My teen's vaping. What should I say? 3 expert tips on how to approach 'the talk'

Should we ban vapes?

So we have a bit of a dilemma. Vaping is much safer than smoking, so it would be helpful for adults to have access to it as an alternative to cigarettes. That means we need to make them more available and accessible.

But ideally we don’t want teens who don’t already smoke to start regular vaping. This has led some to call for a “ crackdown ” on vaping.

But we know from a long history of drug prohibition - like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s - that banning or restricting vaping could actually do more harm than good.

Banning drugs doesn’t stop people using them - more than 43% of Australians have tried an illicit drug at least once. And it has very little impact on the availability of drugs.

But prohibition does have a number of unintended consequences, including driving drugs underground and creating a black market or increasing harms as people switch to other drugs, which are often more dangerous.

The black market makes drugs more dangerous because there is no way to control quality. And it makes it easier, not harder, for teens to access them, because there are no restrictions on who can sell or buy them.

Read more: Learning about the health risks of vaping can encourage young vapers to rethink their habit

Are our current laws working?

In 2021, Australia made it illegal to possess and use nicotine vaping products without a prescription. We are the only country in the world to take this path.

The problem is even after more than a year of this law, only 8.6% of people vaping nicotine have a prescription, meaning more than 90% buy them illegally.

Anecdotal reports even suggest an increase in popularity of vaping among teens since these laws were introduced. At best, they are not helping.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the way to reduce the black market is to make quality-controlled vapes and liquids more widely available, but restricted to adults. If people could access vaping products legally they wouldn’t buy them on the black market and the black market would decline.

We also know from many studies on drug education in schools that when kids get accurate, non-sensationalised information about drugs they tend to make healthier decisions. Sensationalised information can have the opposite effect and increase interest in drugs . So better education in schools and for parents and teachers is also needed, so they know how to talk to kids about vaping and what to do if they know someone is vaping.

What have other countries done?

Other countries allow vapes to be legally sold without a prescription, but impose strict quality controls and do not allow the sale of products to people under a minimum age. This is similar to our regulation of cigarettes and alcohol.

The United Kingdom has minimum standards on manufacturing, as well as restrictions on purchase age and where people can vape.

Aotearoa New Zealand introduced a unique plan to reduce smoking rates by imposing a lifetime ban on buying cigarettes. Anyone born after January 1 2009 will never be able to buy cigarettes, so the minimum age you can legally smoke keeps increasing. At the same time, NZ increased access to vaping products under strict regulations on manufacture, purchase and use.

As of late last year, all US states require sellers to have a retail licence, and sales to people under 21 are banned. There are also restrictions on where people can vape.

A recent study modelled the impact of increasing access to nicotine vaping products in Australia. It found it’s likely there would be significant public health benefits by relaxing the current restrictive policies and increasing access to nicotine vaping products for adults.

The question is not whether we should discourage teens from using vaping products or whether we should allow wider accessibility to vaping products for adults as an alternative to smoking. The answer to both those questions is yes.

The key question is how do we do both effectively without one policy jeopardising the outcomes of the other?

If we took a pragmatic harm-reduction approach, as other countries have done, we could use our very successful model of regulation of tobacco products as a template to achieve both outcomes.

Read more: It's safest to avoid e-cigarettes altogether – unless vaping is helping you quit smoking

• Tobacco control

Senior Research Fellow - Curtin Institute for Energy Transition (CIET)

Director, Student Administration

Graduate Research Support Officer

Sydney Horizon Educators – Faculty of Engineering (Targeted)

Lecturer in Indigenous Health (Identified)

Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Performance Enhancing Drugs — Why Performance Enhancing Drugs Must Be Banned

Why Performance Enhancing Drugs Must Be Banned

• Categories: Performance Enhancing Drugs

About this sample

Words: 1760 |

Published: Oct 25, 2021

Words: 1760 | Pages: 4 | 9 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, works cited.

• Bowers, M. B. (1998). Doping and performance-enhancing drugs. In B. R. Brown (Ed.), Ethical issues in sport (pp. 3-16). Sage Publications.
• Dixon, K. (2008). Steroid testing and legalising performance enhancing drugs: The moralisation of the anti-doping debate. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 1(1), 29-40.
• Evans, N. A., & Parkinson, A. B. (2006). Anabolic androgenic steroids: A survey of 500 users. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 38(4), 644-651.
• Fost, N. (2005). The ethic of performance-enhancing substances in sports. In M. McNamee & J. M. Parry (Eds.), Ethics and sport (pp. 114-127). Routledge.
• Mayo Clinic. (2019, September 5). Performance-enhancing drugs: Know the risks. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/performance-enhancing-drugs/art-20046134
• Mottram, D. R. (2010). Drugs in sport (5th ed.). Routledge.
• Navidinia, M., & Ebadi, A. (2017). Doping in sport: Effects, harm and misconceptions. Journal of Substance Use, 22(5), 521-526.
• Pound, R. (2008). The fight against doping: Why we must win. In M. McNamee & V. Møller (Eds.), Doping and anti-doping policy in sport: Ethical, legal and social perspectives (pp. 17-26). Routledge.
• Redwood, B. (1995). Anabolic steroids: Beyond the legal and health problems. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 29(4), 213-214.
• Schwab, D. E. (2002). Performance-enhancing drug use in college sports: Ethical considerations. Quest, 54(3), 215-226.

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