Drug Addiction and the Open Society

Today, despite America’s three-decades-long national War on Drugs, we are still in the midst of what many have called a “drug epidemic.” If we abandon our policy of “containment”—the long-term effort to reduce the production and consumption of drugs—how far would this epidemic spread through the general population? If most people, or even a substantial minority, became drug addicts whose whole existence revolved around getting their next fix, the prospects for our society would look bleak indeed.

Is this, however, a realistic scenario? When we speak of a “drug epidemic,” after all, we are employing a metaphor, one much abused by public health officials and the modern media. This is clearly not a classic medical epidemic, with a contagious disease spreading through the population. If my neighbor uses heroin, there is no danger that a stray heroin germ will float over the fence into my backyard, where I will acquire it by merely breathing it into my lungs. Still, our conventional wisdom about drugs and addiction asserts that we are right to speak of a drug epidemic. It views certain drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine, as if they were toxic agents capable of acting on an individual independently of his will. Our conventional wisdom insists that there are inherently dangerous and deadly drugs, just as there are inherently dangerous and deadly bacilli. Just as dangerous bacilli must be eliminated for the sake of the public welfare, so too must dangerous drugs.

Our conventional wisdom is often wrong, however—sometimes, so far off the mark that its version of the truth turns out to be nothing more than ignorance, prejudice, and folly. An open society must be prepared to listen to those who offer a critique of its conventional wisdom—and our conventional wisdom about drugs and addiction should be no exception.

Lee Harris

Very interesting essay. A long read, but worth the time.