Illicit drugs remain a threat

But curtailing illicit drug use may be almost as bad

The world has a drug problem and Canada and the United States are not spared. The use of “illicit drugs” is widespread. Ignoring cannabis (which is no longer “illicit” in many jurisdictions) illicit drug use ranges from 1.6 to 3.7% of the global population so somewhere between 100 and 300 million people are “drug addicts”.

Drug overdoses have caused millions of premature deaths worldwide. Looking just at United States, and once again ignoring the 118 million Americans who have used cannabis, the data show some 39 million Americans who have used cocaine and 5 million who have used heroin. I presume Canada’s experience is not much different.

My eldest daughter died at 35 as a result of cocaine and heroin abuse. Thousands of other parents have had a similar experience, since drug related deaths result from risks largely taken by our youth. Most of the illicit drugs coming into North America originate in China and enter through the porous southern border of the United States. Attempts to stem the flow of illicit drugs have been outright failures. The “war on drugs” initiative which began during the Nixon administration has utterly failed despite an outlay of $1 trillion since that effort began and an ongoing cost of about $50 billion annually. Those funds might be better used to help solve the homeless problems in our societies. Drug related offenses predominate the felonies in our prison populations and drug related violence underlies many homicides.

The “war on drugs” ultimately became a tool of social activists calling the policy “racist” since there was some evidence that drug use was not evenly distributed among racial groups and there is political capital in calling anything “racist” as long as that epithet is directed towards white people. I suppose Hunter Biden’s well-publicized cocaine abuse was an anomaly if drug abuse is predominantly the domain on non-white Americans? Hunter is not alone with white celebrities like Sid Vicious, River Phenix, Curt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all dying from drug abuse.

But there is an open question - what happens if the flow of illicit drugs is finally brought to a halt? Over 40 million Americans might immediately go into withdrawal symptoms and history has shown people suffering drug withdrawal symptoms are volatile, aggressive and dangerous and in need of some aggressive medical interventions. Would winning the “war on drugs” create a surge in visits to emergency rooms that would make COVID look like a cake walk?

Drug abuse is not confined to the ghetto nor the homeless camps of San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. How many senior executives, congressmen, members of the administration, mayors, governors or members of the Canadian Parliament and Provincial legislative bodies would become incapacitated if their supply of heroin or cocaine was interrupted? How many airline pilots, air traffic controllers, heart surgeons, firemen and other first responders would be unable to carry out their duties?

The judicial system’s treatment of the distribution and use of illicit drugs as criminal activities has put enormous pressure on the prison system and police forces yet their efforts seem impotent to reduce the incidence of drug related crimes. What to do?

On solution is simple and effective, but not likely to be popular. Educate our children on the risks of drug abuse. De-criminalize all drug use but in parallel stop all medical intervention and support for drug users and let Darwin take care of the resulting problems. Instead of making illicit drug use society’s problem, make it the unique problem of the drug abuser and stop coddling them with “safe spaces”, needle exchange programs, social workers and other costs imposed on the rest of society. Prisons would become less crowded, police could focus on real crimes, government health care budgets would shrink and individuals would benefit or suffer from the choices they make, an incentive to make good choices. Resulting overdoses would still be treated but emergency rooms would not be overwhelmed since the drug abusers would have access to their drugs of choice without state barriers and enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences of their own decisions.

In many respects, such policies would return society to a state where individual rights and responsibilities were respected and neither governments nor society at large tried to be everyone’s nanny. In my opinion, it is about time to put an end to the “nanny state” and free people to live their own lives without needless “mandates” “orders” or “bylaws”.

My daughter made poor choices and suffered the consequences. While I wish she had made better decisions, I can accept her death as the outcome of her own choices with no one to blame but herself.