As criminalization adds to this, harm reductionists want to treat drug abusers as people in need of help, not as felons to be locked up. A further revelation is that drug prohibition only reduces the number of casual users, in other words those whose use doesn't cause or result from problems. The hard-core dependents don't care if it's illegal or their lives are in the toilet, they're going to get high. That's why prohibition doesn't work. The other faction centers its arguments around civil rights.
Many basic rights are currently under siege by the drug warriors.
Many advocated in this group even go so far as to post a right to make informed decisions about what they'll take into their bodies without state interference or coercion. Foremost among them is Thomas Szasz, a pioneer in decrying the various hypocrisies of prohibitionist laws, policies and education. Once the policy wonks start to play with the idea, one begins to suspect that another of my cohorts, Mr. Glenn Given, is right, and the best thing would be some sort of decriminalization which would stop people from getting busted but still keep the grimy little paws of the government out the whole affair. There is also somewhere in the book a proposal that juveniles using forbidden substances be jailed to find out how they're getting the stuff and arresting those concerned. I smoked my first cigarette at 13, drank my first beer at 15, and was initiated into the giggly rites of marijuana shortly thereafter.