Legalize narcotics

"We don't let people play with fire just because they want to. We don't let people steal because they want to. We don't let people kill just because they want to. We don't even let people kill themselves because they want to." Each of these analogies is flawed. Theft, arson, and murder are all crimes that violate the rights of others, whereas drug use does not inherently harm anyone else. A drug user may steal a TV to pay for drugs, but then he should be punished for theft; outlaw the crime, not the motive. The suicide example is not applicable either; neither the government nor any other party has the right to tell a person what they can or cannot do with their own body, least of all in this manner. A person's body is their property, not the state's, and therefore the state cannot tell them what to do to themselves. If a person is not infringing on the rights of any other human being, why should the government have any authority over their actions? "Keeping people safe from themselves" is the credo of tyrants. "More effective methods of cracking down on drugs need to be enforced, that is true, but lowering the amount of money spent against drugs will inadvertently KILL PEOPLE" "The Nation's Toughest Drug Law: Evaluating the New York Experience, by the Joint Committee on New York Drug Law Evaluation, of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York" was a study conducted to investigate the causes of drug-related violence. While the study did find a link between harsher penalties for drug use and drug violence, the study could not find a link between spending more money on combating drug use and decreased violence. "I do not believe in complaining unless you have a solution however. We need to enforce strong punishments against casual users, because they provide the cash necessary for drugs to survive. Shame through extended community service, harsh jail time for 6-12 months, and more for repeat offenders. A government provided budget for schools to set up programs to help educate kids about drugs. If you teach them from a young age to avoid drugs, chances are that unless they live in an environment that encourages drug use, they will never use drugs." We have all these things NOW, and they have done NOTHING. Drug use has INCREASED over time, despite all these policies and more! The above study indicates why harsh penalties are NOT the solution. My entire POINT is that drug policy has been getting stricter, and has accomplished nothing. "Watching people around you die and doing nothing, when you have the ability to help them, and still living with yourself... you couldn't do it if you were any kind of good person." If you know someone with a drug problem, someone who is in danger of dying, help them. If they truly want help, they will accept it. (It is a tenant of addiction counseling that you first must WANT to seek help before it will work.) But to continue an ineffective, brutal, unjust campaign is not the solution. Locking nonviolent drug users in prison for years is not the solution. Ordering everyone on Earth to treat themselves the way the State says they should, on the basis of protecting them from making a bad choice, is NEVER the solution. You have not shown any way in which the drug war has improved the situation, nor have you demonstrated why MORE drug war would save MORE lives. I have shown how the drug war has FAILED, and has HARMED more than it has helped.