They Don’t Deserve This, the Human Cost of the War on Drugs
By: Literary Renegade
Tags: War On Drugs, Drugs, Addiction, Criminal Justice Reform, Police Brutality

Too many people have died or had their lives destroyed for a war we can never win and should have never started.

There is an entire group of oppressed people throughout most of the world that are treated like animals, are locked in cages, have their property taken from them, are stereotyped constantly in the media, and are generally looked down upon by society. These people have to hide in the shadows, not revealing their true identity to protect themselves and often their families. Whether they are good parents or not doesn’t really matter, if they are discovered, they will often lose custody of their children. They can easily have their drivers licenses taken away and have to rely on friends or public transportation (if available in their town) just to get to work. The vast majority of these folks do have jobs (before the pandemic at least), but those jobs are constantly at risk if they are discovered. If they are arrested, they will often be forced to work either doing unpaid community service, or prison labor for less then a dollar a day. In the United States, after they get out of prison they can be banned from receiving food stamp assistance and federal student loans for the rest of their lives. These people often lose their voice in society, both by losing the right to vote in some places, and because people often dismiss anything they say solely because of who they are. They have very little rights and any day the police can break down their door with no warning, destroy their property, attack or kill them, their family, and/or their pets. They are usually portrayed as thieves, lazy, insane, sex-crazed, or just plain stupid; even though many of them are highly intelligent, hard working, and productive members of society. If given the chance to succeed, they often will.

Who are these people? They are people who use illegal drugs of any kind, from cannabis to heroin. Who is standing up for these people? While there are several organizations and brave individuals fighting to end drug prohibition, there isn’t really a popular movement or organization dedicated to protecting the drug users themselves as a group. Although there are a few organized groups of drug users scattered throughout the world, it’s hard for people to join or create these groups because they must hide who they are or face extremely negative consequences, sometimes including death. I believe more efforts need to be made to protect these people and their rights.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

The War on Drugs is destroying lives of all races, although a significant amount of the impact has been felt in minority communities. The war was inherently racist from the beginning, it was used as a way to target minorities and lock them up. Yellow journalism told tall tales of African American men who took cocaine, were impervious to bullets, and ran around raping white women in a drug fueled frenzy. Cannabis was mainly used by Mexican laborers when it was made illegal, and the law was used to target them. Harry Anslinger, who led a crusade against drugs beginning in the 1930’s was a known racist. He used race as a way to attack cannabis and build support for his Federal Bureau of Narcotics which would eventually become the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, Jazz and Swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.” “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” – Harry J. Anslinger

The racial injustice of the War on Drugs didn’t end with Anslinger, it continues to this day. Despite being less likely overall to use illegal drugs, African Americans are more then three times more likely to be arrested for them, according to a 2009 report by Jamie Fellner of the Human Rights Watch, “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States.” You generally have a better chance of getting less prison time if you are White depending on the jurisdiction. A meta study, “The Relationship between Race, Ethnicity, and Sentencing Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Sentencing Research”, that examined 85 different studies on sentencing and race found that there was a small but statistically significant difference in sentencing outcomes based on your race, with African Americans being sentenced more harshly then Whites.

The War on Drugs may have started as a way to target minorities, but it became a way to suppress the constitutional freedoms of all Americans. If we don’t have the freedom to do what we want to our own bodies, how can we say America is a free country? It’s only a free country for people who don’t do drugs or that only do state sanctioned drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, or prescribed pharmaceuticals. Multiple Supreme Court rulings over the years gave the police more power then they were ever supposed to have, leading to the police state we now live in. Today people of all races are dying and being thrown in prison due to drug prohibition and over-policing. If an individual is a becoming a problem for the state or for a corrupt police officer or officers, all they have to do is plant a some drugs on them and their problem is solved. If the Fourth Amendment is getting in their way they can just say that they smell drugs, or say that their “drug dog” smells drugs, which is perfect for police trying to get around warrant requirements because drug dogs can’t testify in court. Drug dogs are rewarded in training when they “smell” drugs and so they will often false alert in hopes of getting a treat, or they will false alert when signaled to do so by a dirty cop. Let’s not even get into the fact that for every dog you train to smell drugs, that’s another dog who isn’t being trained to smell bombs which would actually save lives instead of destroying them.

Image by Jody Davis from Pixabay

With the recent death of George Floyd, once again the spotlight has been placed on yet another pointless death at the hands of the police, and a national conversation has started about whether we should defund the police or not. One common argument coming from those who support the police is that the problems are limited to some bad apples that can be rooted out without rebuilding the entire system from the ground up. I think this is simply not true, rather then a few bad apples, the whole tree is rotten to the core. Other then the few police officers who don’t support the War on Drugs such as the members of LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnership, formerly Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), every single officer who helps enforce drug prohibition, every prosecutor who charges the drug users and dealers, and every lawmaker who doesn’t try to change the law, they are all bad apples. Whether or not they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are doing the right thing or not, there is no valid excuse for the widespread harm and death they help perpetuate. Don’t dare say they are just doing their jobs either, just doing your job is not a valid excuse for what is inherently immoral behavior, and it is disturbingly similar to the “just following orders” excuse used by so many former Nazis. We should defund the police immediately, legalize all drugs, and use some of the saved tax payer dollars and new tax revenue from regulated drug sales to both fund voluntary drug treatment and education programs and to help anyone who has been negatively affected by drug prohibition. Even with a significantly reduced budget, ending the War on Drugs would allow the police forces of the world to focus so much more resources on actually fighting real crime, and maybe even preventing some too. According to a 2019 article in The Atlantic, “An Epidemic of Disbelief”, over 200,000 rape kits sat untested across the country at the time the article was written. Ironically in one instance, even though the Cleveland police were unable to muster the resources to test the rape kit for DNA of a certain serial killer’s victim, they did find the time to test her system for illegal drugs! Meanwhile we manage to find $47 billion dollars a year to fund the War on Drugs in America. How many murders, rapes, and property crimes could be not only solved but prevented if even half of that money was redirected? I just thought of more bodies to add to my list below of deaths attributable to drug prohibition, those of all the murder victims of killers the police could of stopped if they had the resources to do so. How many serial killers got to kill more people before getting caught because the police were too busy fighting the War on Drugs to devote more resources to catching them? Supporters of drug prohibition need to answer for those deaths as well.

We hear a lot in the news about police killings of unarmed people, what we don’t hear a lot about are all the indirect deaths caused by police, prosecutors and lawmakers who choose to continue this farce. Considering that 1 in 6 adults have used illegal drugs recently (according to the SAMHSA’s 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, however it is quite possible the number is even higher because some people don’t want to admit to using illegal drugs even anonymously), you probably know some people who use drugs, you may have drug users in your family, you may use drugs yourself, and/or you may have lost someone to drug use. The fact is the majority of drug related deaths are caused by drug prohibition, most likely far out numbering any deaths prevented by it (yes this is basically impossible to quantify, but I would bet my life that it is true). As long as the police, prosecutors, and lawmakers enforce drug prohibition then in my opinion they are at least partially responsible for these pointless deaths. I have made a list below of all the ones I could think of, and I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of.

Every time someone died from an overdose because they didn’t know how pure their drugs were, or because Narcan wasn’t or isn’t easily available in their jurisdiction. (Some people actually try to prevent access to this life saving overdose reversal drug on the basis that it “encourages” drug use! Such callous disregard for human life is ridiculous.)

Every time someone died from an overdose because they were sent to jail for drugs and used when they got out, misjudging their tolerance level which dropped while they were incarcerated.

Every time someone dies from an overdose because the people they were with were too scared to call 911 out of fear of going to prison or getting killed by police.

Every person who died of AIDS or other infections from using a dirty needle because it’s illegal to buy clean syringes in their jurisdiction, or because syringe exchanges are blocked from opening.

Every person who was so emotionally damaged by being subjected to horrible prison conditions, including physical attacks, rape, solitary confinement, lack of quality health care, etc, that they took their own life.

Every person who went to prison for drug crimes, and was murdered in prison either by the guards or other inmates.

Every person whose lives outside of prison were made so miserable by drug prohibition that they took their own life. Being a drug user in a prohibition climate takes a huge mental and physical toll on people, often causing them to want to do drugs even more then they would if this pressure was removed by legalization.

Every person who died from alcohol related causes who would have been using cannabis instead if it had been legal. (I personally have met many people who decided to switch to drinking or other drugs from only using cannabis either because they were being drug tested or because cannabis was hard/expensive to get in their town which often led to negative outcomes for them.)

Every person who died in a car accident caused by a drug related police pursuit.

Every person who died from an overdose trying to destroy (by ingesting) evidence during a police encounter.

Every person who choose to take their own life during a drug related police encounter rather then face decades in prison.

Every person who was killed by the police during a drug related or what was supposed to be a drug related incident. Does being suspected of having a plant or some cocaine really justify busting someone’s door down and shooting them? Shooting their dogs? Throwing flash bangs in their kid’s cribs? Not to mention if they didn’t even end up having any drugs because the careless or corrupt police had bad information, fabricated evidence, or the wrong address.

Every person who has died during drug related violence, whether it be victims of cartels or smaller street gangs who have been given incentive to commit violence to protect massive amounts of profits from black market drugs. This incentive would disappear overnight the day drugs are legalized.

Every person who has died from using adulterated drugs.

Every drug mule who has died from drug packages bursting in their stomachs.

Every person who has died in a robbery gone wrong, if the robbery was for money to buy drugs, or if it was a robbery of a drug dealer.

As I mentioned above, every murder victim that could have been saved if the police had spent more resources fighting real crime instead of drug crimes.

If anybody thinks of any other unnecessary drug war deaths to add to this list, please mention them in the comments below.

Instead of the cops, prosecutors, and lawmakers who deserve most of the blame for these deaths, the blame often goes to the drug dealers, or who ever provided the drugs to the person, whether they sold them or not. A large number of those drug dealers that are usually portrayed as gun toting heartless gangsters in the media, are drug addicts themselves, simply doing what they have to in order to support their habit. Or they are people who have trouble getting decent paying traditional jobs, often due to the stigma of a prior criminal record, and turn to drug dealing in order to support themselves and their families. Sadly, often times the “drug dealer” is a grieving partner or family member who is prosecuted for the death of a loved one because they shared the drugs with them that led to an accidental overdose. Often times they are the ones that call 911. Another important factor in all this death is the fentanyl problem. Many people who have been heroin addicts for years have recently been forced to switch to straight fentanyl or fentanyl laced heroin because regular heroin is no longer available where they live. They often don’t like it as much as regular heroin but they use it because there is nothing else available. Fentanyl is extremely dangerous compared to regular heroin. This is the potency effect of prohibition, when you make drugs illegal, the drug smugglers try to find the most purest form of the drug they can so that it is smaller and easier to smuggle. What’s easier to smuggle, fentanyl which you can mail thousands of doses of in a standard envelope, or regular old bulky heroin? Fentanyl would of never caught on like it did without prohibition, so that’s another pile of bodies that shouldn’t of died.

Photo by New Hampshire State Police Forensic Lab

I have a message for all you anti-drug warriors out there who are “just doing their job”, drugs aren’t the problem, you are the problem. You are not fighting crime, you are creating crime from thin air. There have been so many pointless deaths for a pointless cause, illegal drug use hasn’t gone down significantly at all since this started, if anything, it has increased. All you’re doing is helping to funnel billions upon billions of dollars to drug cartels and destabilizing entire countries in the name of eradicating something that can never be eradicated. As long as humans are human, they will continue to try to change their consciousness. So many hypocritical law enforcement officers will often go to the bar after work, and have a few drinks to celebrate throwing some more drug users or dealers in prison. Why is your alcohol any better then those drugs? Alcohol is literally more harmful to one’s body than heroin is. Why is that okay? How many more people have to die or go to prison? Do you really think 1 in 6 adults deserve to be locked up for choosing a different drug then you Mr. Officer? What if it was your kid? Oh yeah, if it was your kid who got arrested for drugs you’d probably call in a favor to make it all go away.

I truly don’t understand how they sleep at night, these cops, prosecutors, and lawmakers. The fact that it’s your job to do something, such as lock people up for drugs, does not make it right to do so. Maybe you can give a young rookie cop some slack for being naive and thinking he’s doing the right thing. You can cut him some slack for maybe, six months or so, because by then if they have any sense whatsoever they will come to the realization that drug dealers aren’t shadowy figures in trench coats lurking outside playgrounds trying to recruit new addicts, and that drug users aren’t the fiends from the movies, but they are just people like everyone else. At that point, if they are still choosing to enforce prohibition, then I just don’t understand how they can live with the knowledge that they are destroying people’s lives every day and getting paid for it. Police officers love to say they are just doing their jobs, that they are putting their lives on the line every day to fight some kind of never ending massive crime wave. The fact is, crime has been decreasing since 1990, and mass incarceration only had a modest role in this decrease. We could even speculate that without the mass incarceration trend in the United States, crime might of decreased even more because nonviolent drug offenders wouldn’t of been sent to what is essentially crime school for years and then been unable to find legal employment after their release.

Despite common misconceptions, being a police officer is a remarkably safe job! They want you to think that they should be forgiven for the occasional killing of an unarmed suspect because they have to deal with constant threats to their lives from all sides. After all since everyone is trying to kill them, can you really blame them for assuming that cell phone was a gun or that (insert basically any object here)? Well this is another example of lies fed to you by the police unions and other pro-police advocates. Violent police deaths on duty have been steadily declining for decades now. They are not under “attack” constantly, they are actually quite safe on the job on average. Consider the following quote;

“To put the risk of policing in perspective: fisherman and loggers are 10 times more likely to be killed on the job than a police officer, a farmer is 2 times more likely to die on the job, according to national figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A logging worker is eight times more likely than a police officer to die on the job, and a garbage man is three times more likely to die while working.”

From Huffington Post “Police Work Isn’t as Dangerous as You May Think”

I’m not seeing any good excuses in the data for the widespread brutality committed by many police officers. Even if policing was more dangerous, that still wouldn’t justify killing or beating unarmed suspects. If it’s this bad now, when cameras are ubiquitous, how bad was it before the world was watching?

If the police were serious about wanting to decrease crime, they would stop enforcing drug laws immediately and the crime rate would drop significantly overnight. The majority of property crime is a direct result of the War on Drugs. Drugs became many times more expensive when they were forced into the black market, therefore addicts often can’t afford them with their paychecks alone (many drug addicts do hold down a job despite the common misconception that most are homeless and unemployed), especially in smaller cities and rural areas where drugs are often much more expensive than in a larger city.

Drug addicts who don’t have the luxury of a high paying job (even if they are qualified for one, drug tests are a major obstacle), have limited options because they need cash constantly. Jobs that pay tips are popular because of the daily cash flow, but a couple bad nights in a row can screw everything up. With an opiate addiction for example, it’s almost impossible to even go to work if you have gone more then 24 hours without a dose. So in order to keep your job which you need to even function, you have to pick up the slack somehow. Title loans, pawn shops, family members, panhandling, and odd jobs are all used if they can be. But once these options have been exhausted and the addict has nothing left to sell, that is when they will sometimes turn to property crime or drug dealing.

In addition to decreasing property crime and corruption, drug legalization would also significantly reduce violent crimes due to the evaporation of an entire black market. With no drug profits to protect, gangs and cartels would have less incentive to commit violence. With these massive drug profits we are giving to the cartels they are literally able to arm themselves better then the authorities, and can use bribes to protect themselves as well.

Now what is so dangerous about these drugs that justifies spending so much money and letting people die to attempt to prevent their use? The facts are, many illegal drugs are much less dangerous then you have been led to believe by authorities. Heroin, in its pure form, doesn’t really have any major negative side effects other then constipation and the flu like withdrawals if you do it too often. Cannabis is almost harmless, MDMA when unadulterated by the black market is also relatively benign. LSD has never directly killed anyone that we know of, magic mushrooms haven’t either, and cocaine can kill you but it is a relatively rare occurrence. At the beginning of the 20th century you could literally order heroin or cocaine from a mail order catalog, and society somehow managed to keep functioning! But wait, hold on a minute, what about the children! We can’t legalize drugs because all our kids will immediately drop their video games, skate down to the nearest drug store, and pay a bum to score them some crack! Well that hasn’t happened with legalized cannabis at least, cannabis use among our youth has not increased in the past decade despite multiple states legalizing it. This is coming straight from the CDC’s “2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey”. So if our kids in states that have legalized cannabis aren’t suddenly tripping over themselves to smoke pot, it’s doubtful they will want to go use more harmful drugs just because they are legal. In fact by legalizing and regulating illegal drugs, they will become harder for kids to get a hold of. Drug dealers usually don’t ask for ID after all.

Unfortunately it’s still seen as radical to suggest something as “crazy” as legalizing all drugs, which would immediately solve a multitude of problems, decrease crime and violence significantly, and most importantly restore what are supposed to be inalienable rights to the people. But there is some hope in all of this, finally it feels like the War on Drugs is losing the widespread support it has had for decades. Mainstream political candidates from both parties are openly talking about criminal justice reform, and even Donald Trump was willing to sign the First Step Act into law, which was at least a baby step in the right direction. For the first time in a long time, our prison population in the United States is starting to decrease, but we still have a long way to go. Stop treating drug users like they are subhuman because they choose to use a substance besides alcohol and tobacco. There is nothing morally wrong with using drugs, and yes sometimes drug use will develop into a drug addiction, but these addictions can be managed and treated as a purely public health issue rather then a criminal issue. These people are our brothers and sisters, moms and dads, sons and daughters. Some of them are bad people but most of them are good, just like everyone else. One thing is for sure though and that is, they don’t deserve this, nobody does. Our bodies are the only thing in this world that we truly own, we have them when we come into this world and we still have them when we leave this world. No government, no officer, no politician, nobody has the right to tell you what you can and can’t do to your own body as long as you aren’t harming anyone else. If you also believe the War on Drugs is doing more harm than good, I encourage you to take action, stand up for what’s right in any way you can. Whether it be through your wallet, your vote, or your voice, you can make a difference in this fight.

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