I’ve been mentally wrestling with the issues of the War on Drugs for quite some time. As a Vancouver native I am, quite naturally, closer to this issue than many. The neighbourhood in which I live has one of the highest concentrations of marijuana grow operations on the continent. At the same time, I’ve seen close up the destructive effects that drugs can have on individual lives. The present situation is intolerable: drugs are everywhere, bringing massive profits to criminals, while some individuals are punished massively for minor offenses and others are not punished at all. It is entirely clear to me that we have reached a point in the Drug War in which we must either advance or retreat.

I am a firm believer in the idea that the law should have a certain majesty to it. Punishments and rewards should be public and spectacular in order to discourage antisocial behavior and encourage virtue. Drug laws bring the law as a whole into disrepute because, for the most part, they go entirely unenforced and, when they are enforced, it is in such an arbitrary and capricious fashion as to make the law seem an irrational and random force. Either we must have drug laws that can (and will) be fully enforced, or we should have none at all.

This leaves us with three broad options. Either we launch an extreme crackdown in an effort to bring the public into compliance with the present laws and standards, we repeal the laws altogether, or we devise and entirely new set of laws which are simple and enforceable.

I must admit that, for me, the approach taken towards drugs by some of the more authoritarian Asian nations (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand) holds a certain appeal. I’ve yet to meet a drug dealer who wasn’t the sort of scum who would improve the gene pool by his death. The swift hanging of drug dealers and traffickers makes a great deal of sense and would probably be, for the simple reason that it would massively raise the streets price of drugs, very effective. Thailand’s response to its own drug crisis (launching a “Drug War” in which it simply shot those involved with the drug trade), while emotionally satisfying to a degree, would simply not be practical in the West. Neither, I suppose, would the hundreds of drug-related executions which would be required to satisfy the broader approach.

While I admit that I possess a certain affinity for the occasional use of totalitarian methods, I don’t expect that people would tolerate either the mass round-up and forced treatment of street drug users or the necessary imposition of Martial Law in those areas most blighted by drugs. This (executions of dealers and round-ups of users) sums up the general impracticality of taking a much harder line against drugs. In order to eradicate drugs, we would have to take measures too strong to be considered tolerable in a democratic society.

In truth, I am also attracted to the idea of total drug legalization. In my experience, most of the people who do enough drugs to seriously damage their lives (or, perhaps, to kill themselves) wouldn’t much be missed by anyone other than their immediate family (and in many cases not even them). In this light, heavy drug users might be simply seen as individuals fulfilling the Darwinian impulse, making the best contribution to society that their feeble minds and limited talents will allow. If we were to let the market flood with cheap and legal Heroin and Crack Cocaine, I imagine that half of the welfare cheques issued two months later would go mysteriously uncashed.

Of course that too, I think, would be unacceptable to most people, including most of the non-libertarian advocates of drug legalization. If I can be convinced that drug legalization can be made cost-neutral, I might take a closer look. However, frankly, I’m quite sure that any savings made from reduced policing against drug offenders would be taken up searching for people smuggling drugs to avoid taxes (inevitably any government legalizing drugs would tax them so highly as to ensure that the illegal drug market remained a lucrative one), increased social service spending, and massively increased spending on anti-drug education (which, surely would be a pre-condition among certain groups for the legalization of drugs).

Those libertarians who would advocate total drug legalization should remember this: they may well be prime advocates of such a move but, inevitably, any such process would be hijacked by the government and the alphabet-soup of non-governmental organizations who would, I’m quite sure, respond to legal drugs in just as statist a fashion as they do illegal ones. Drug legalization, under present conditions, is unlikely to bring any sort of freedom from the state, just a different form of (probably equally or more expensive) prohibition. Instead of paying for jail cells you’ll pay for more state-funded treatment beds. Instead of police officers you’ll pay for enforcement officers and inspectors.

The only option left open to us it would then appear is a mixed approach. Forget about trying to stop drug use or sales altogether: trying to stamp the menace out. Instead, look for ways to drive it underground. Drugs will always be with us, but they are only an affront to society if they are seen in public and thus in defiance of the law. Legalize private possession and use of drugs while, at the same time, creating new penalties for public drug use of any sort. At the very least, anyone seen using drugs on the streets should spend a few days in jail. Additionally, increase the penalties on those who sell drugs, with the idea of driving up prices to the maximum degree possible.

Finally, any new drug-related laws need to look at hitting hard the side-effects of drug crime: burglaries, car theft, and robberies. A serious and violent crackdown on this sort of drug-related crime is essential to arresting the present breakdown in societal order.

It’s time for new thinking on the matter of drugs. Our present policies are manifestly unworkable. We can slam shut our eyes and shove our fingers in our ears for only so long. The present policies are not working and, because they are obviously not working, they are bringing the law as a whole into disrepute.