Self-Defense & Violence Prevention Blog

by Scott Hughes

Working in the field of crime prevention, self-defense, and victim-assistance brings out both my philanthropist side and my cynical side. On the philanthropic hand, I don’t want to see any person victimized. On the realistically cynical hand, humans will always victimize each other. On the philanthropically cynical side, I wish to see innocent people protected from criminals as much as possible.

Unfortunately, a government-sponsored war on drugs currently increases victimization two-fold. Firstly, drug prohibition funds crime and terrorism amongst the public. Secondly, the government victimizes the populace both by taxing harmless citizens to fund its futile war on drugs AND by arresting and jailing harmless citizens who pursue happiness by taking drugs.

First things first, similar to the historical prohibition of alcohol, drug prohibition only increases crime and corruption, and it does so in a multitude of ways.

Financially speaking, drug prohibition funds criminals. Instead of legal non-violent drug stores making money, criminal factions such as drug lords, gangs, mafias, and terrorists get all the drug business. Instead of a 16-year-old CVS clerk making a few bucks an hour, a felonious dealer finances a new gun.

In addition to funding criminals, drug prohibition decreases the effectiveness of law-enforcement. While the police waste money to fight a futile war on non-violent drug “offenders”, innocent family members, friends and countrymen are victimized by violent criminals. Most Americans would be happy to see anything done to protect innocent people from victimization and violence, but for their “law-enforcing” government to waste over 50 billion dollars a year waging a war on non-violent druggies is just absurd. Rather than used to enforce victimless “crimes”, that 50 billion dollars could be put to protecting citizens from being victimized. Or, the 50 billion dollars could be given back to the taxpayers to spend on personal self-defense & security measures. As if wasting 50 billion dollars a year wasn’t enough, drug prohibition increases law-enforcement corruption, which of course decreases the enforcement of laws and protection of innocent citizens.

As David Boaz put it, “The huge profits generated by prohibition are an irresistible temptation to Mexican drug czars, Colombian judges, American soldiers in Panama, police officers, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and so on. When police officers and border guards arrest people carrying more cash than they’ll make in a decade, it’s hardly surprising that some of them are persuaded to look the other way.”

Some have argued for drug prohibition by saying that a drug habit causes people to commit crime, such as robbery to fund an addictive habit. However, criminalization drives up the price causing more users to turn to crime to fund their habit. Additionally, especially with non-addictive drugs like marijuana, prohibition increases criminal behavior amongst drug-users by associating users with violent criminals, both on the streets and in prison. Instead of going to the local pharmacy or pub for their drugs, users go to gun-bearing street dealers. Instead of living and working peacefully, users are arrested and thrown into a criminal-producing jail with violent criminals, sentenced to a life of crime.

Unfortunately, drug prohibition doesn’t just increase the victimization of citizens by other citizens. In and of itself, drug prohibition entails the victimization of citizens by their government.

One of my main goals in the business of crime-prevention, self-defense, and victim-assistance is to prevent and counteract robbery. Taxpayers are robbed of their hard earned money by their government to arrest, convict, and jail non-violent drug users. At just the federal level, drug enforcement cost about $22 billion in the Reagan years and another $45 billion in the four years of the Bush administration, and costs about $20 billion a year now. Including the states and local governments, drug prohibition cost U.S. taxpayers over $50 billion a year.

The taxpayers aren’t the only direct victim of the war on drugs. The non-violent non-harmful drug users, who are arrested and incarcerated, are also offensively victimized by the government. By their own government, over 1.5 million non-violent non-harmful American citizens are arrested at the expense of American taxpayers every year. The U.S. has over 2.2 million people incarcerated in jails and prisons, about 25 percent are non-violent drug “offenders”.

Some people may say that the drug users are criminals, so the government’s victimization of drug-users doesn’t matter. I believe it is a misnomer to call drug-users criminals. Since the drug-user hasn’t harmed anybody (except arguably himself) and the government has harmed the drug-user, I believe the drug–user is the victim. Similar to the founding fathers, who built America based on the Lockean principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I believe that everyone including drug-users has every right to pursue happiness, without harming anyone else, in any way they please.

Regardless of one’s ideological feelings toward freedom, drug prohibition increases crime, violence, corruption, and taxes. So, unless one supports crime, violence, corruption, and wasted taxes, then one opposes drug prohibition.

About The Author: Scott Hughes owns this blog on safety, self-defense, and security.