This campaign is brilliant because it aims at killing the Reefer-Madness-like stereotype that people who take drugs are evil, violent, uneducated, or otherwise harmful/useless to society. This is a myth that has been proven wrong several times throughout history. When we take into account that more than 40% of the United State's adult population has admitted to trying cannabis, a substance which seems to be the government's priority when it comes to drug prohibition, we realize that calling 40% of the United State's worthless would be simply misanthropic.
A woman studying at the same university as I started talking to me about this online. I tend to publish many links and videos on Facebook to raise awareness and launch discussion, so this was an expected outcome and I was glad she confronted me on this. According to the woman, who is a fervent supporter of the Democratic Party and a Roman Catholic, "people who take drugs should be put in jail because they have done something wrong and they should be punished for them to not repeat the same mistakes." She went on to say that "people who use harder drugs [than just pot] should be in jail for at least several years because it is very bad for themselves, and society can't let people destroy themselves like this."
Those are very interesting points. Naturally, I disagree with them, and I'll explain why. In this woman's head lies the idea that there are "good drugs" and "bad drugs." Those "good drugs" are those you get from your pharmacist, those you take when your body isn't feeling quite right; the bad ones are those that your government tells you are forbidden. I told her that people use hard drugs legally everyday, and do suffer from addiction from it. I told her the meds that doctors prescribe are sometimes extremely harmful to the mental and physical health of patients, and are sometimes unpredictable because of their relative novelty. On the other hand, cannabis has a rather predictable set of effects that have been observed for several thousand years, and does not have the physically addictive properties of the many painkillers that doctors prescribe to their patients.
Long story short, I told her that the concept of drugs remains the same whether it is over-the-counter, requires prescription, or included in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. You use a substance in order to launch a set of expected effects in your body and/or your mind. Let's take caffeine, for example. I've probably ranted a little bit about this before, but caffeine is a drug that basically has the same effects as some illegal stimulants. Provided you take high doses of it, you will be physically addicted, go through withdrawal symptoms, and crave for that same rush of mental and physical energy provided by the substance. My point is : if even the "good drugs" can be bad for you, then why make a distinction?
She told me that "the people who take caffeine generally aren't addicted, contrarily to the illegal drugs which people take which changes their life forever and they can never go back." If you've taken a critical reasoning class, you will notice the slippery slope informal fallacy in the last part of the woman's argument. But the information in the argument is equally wrong. As I told the woman, people who consume cannabis generally aren't addicted either, and they do so in a very similar manner as that of one who drinks a beer while watching the baseball game after a day of hard work. I think she understood her argument was flawed in many, many ways, which is why she moved on to her final argument.
According to her, "maybe pot isn't that big a deal, but drugs like cocaine or oxycontin will lead to addiction, and from that point on, they will never be able to lead a productive life again. We need someone to do something to prevent people from taking bad drugs!" I could've gone on and on about how her appeal to prohibition and incarceration was not a good approach. Instead, I told her that a cocaine user won't necessarily be an unproductive drug addict, and that (quoting the campaign) "good people take drugs." To mark my point, I reminded her that her beloved President, Barack Obama, had consumed cocaine on several occasions. Did that stop him from leading a successful life? Whether or not you agree with his politics, you know the answer is no.
I don't think the woman was inherently stupid. I don't think she is an evil prohibitionist motivated by profits and greed. I don't even think she was being a hypocrite about this. What I do think is that she is, like many people all over the world, a good-faith American that thought that listening to her government was the right thing to do. Unfortunately for many, she is not the only one who is willing to blindly follow her government in order to do what she thinks is the right thing. What we need is to revive the political audacity within this nation.
A close friend of mine wrote a note on Facebook regarding trust in government in America. His argument is that many Americans believe that in order to be a good American, one must listen and follow his/her government. However, when looking at the values that the founding fathers had in mind during the development of the United States, we can see that there is nothing more American than not trusting the government. In his words : "This country was formed on the idea of not trusting the government, nothing screams American more than not trusting the government!"
So to close up, I'm going to expand the "Nice People Take Drugs" motto and say "Good People Violate the Law". Indeed, since the government does not have authority on what is morally right and what is morally wrong, we can conclude that there will be a significant portion of criminals who aren't inherently bad people. What you believe is right or wrong is for you to decide, not the government. What drugs you choose to take is for you to decide, not the government. How you choose to live your life, provided you do not harm anyone else or their liberties, should be your decision, and not anybody else's.
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