The Moral Incoherence Of Drug Prohibition
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
The state of Rhode Island is considering the legalization of recreational marijuana, and some opponents of legalization have jumped in to demand the status quo continues.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday for example, that Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has come out forcefully against the legalization of marijuana claiming that marijuana turns people into “zombie-like individuals.”
Tobin's implied support for breaking up families and jailing fathers, wives, mothers, and husbands — for the “crime” of using a plant that Tobin dislikes — is illustrative. Tobin's positions provide us with a helpful and high-profile example of the flaws in attempts to make moral arguments claiming that non-violent activities should be regulated and punished by states.
What Prohibition Means
A call for the continued criminalization of marijuana use and sales necessary implies support for jailing and punishing individuals who deal in the production, use, or distribution of this particular plant.
This also brings with it tacit approval and support of everything that comes with government prohibition. With every law comes the need to enforce that law. Support for legal prohibition means either explicit or implied support for the following:
- The use of taxpayer funds to support courts for the legal prosecution of drug users including the necessary staff and real estate. These resources are necessarily diverted from being used to prosecute and try perpetrators of violent crime including murderers, rapists, thieves, and other violators of property rights.
- The use of taxpayer funds to support a police force to apprehend violators, including surveillance equipment, paid informants, police staff, automobiles, and jails. This necessarily draws resources away from police activities designed to capture rapists, murderers, thieves, and other violent criminals.
- The use of taxpayer funds to build, maintain, and staff a system of jails and prisons for the warehousing of drug-use convicts which also necessitates resources to be provided for food, health care, and other amenities.
- The destruction of marriages and families which results from the incarceration or drug users.
- An increase in the number of single-parent families (due to one parent being incarcerated), and the resulting increase of poverty.
Moreover, prohibition leads to the creation of black markets and empowers organized crime outfits and other violent criminals who thrive under the conditions created by prohibition. In response to these side effects, the prohibitionists simply call for even more policing, more public expense, and more incarceration.
To be fair, it could be that Tobin is actually opposed to harsh penalties for drug use, and that he favors decriminalization. If that is the case, he needs to clarify the difference between this position and his call to “say no to the legalization of marijuana in Rhode Island.” But make no mistake, if Tobin takes any position that calls for the sanctioning of private individuals at taxpayer expense, the burden of proof is on him to demonstrate that his preferred course of action — i.e., state coercion — is …read more
Source: The Moral Incoherence Of Drug Prohibition
