Authorizing the Criminal State

Writes Free Your Kids:

The War on Drugs has been a colossal failure, yet still it persists. Many people defend it on the grounds that we (collectively) must do something to keep people from harming themselves. Whether one feels illegal drugs are harmful or not (I think they’re generally not harmful), we must ask ourselves if the cost of protecting people from their own choices is worth the associated costs.

Consider the following…The state will seize a certain percentage of one’s earnings to wage this War on Drugs. Much of this money will be wasted, of course, as with any government program. If an individual refuses to cooperate and declines to allow the state to steal his income (tax evasion), he can quite possibly be placed in a cage for noncompliance. By refusing to support violence against another, violence will be perpetrated on you.

Also, supporting the current War on Drugs means one tacitly agrees that if an individual is caught possessing a certain quantity of these illegal substances, she should be subject to imprisonment. This could be your son or daughter. My sons or daughters. A best friend. A loved one. By saying, yes, I support the War on Drugs, one is authorizing the state to place human beings in cages for “crimes” that harm no one.

Saying “yes” to the War on Drugs means saying “yes” to an ever-expanding police state. It means saying “yes” to gross abuses of human rights. It means saying “yes” to potentially removing children from parents who choose to smoke cannabis. It means saying “yes” to more violence. It means saying “yes” to ruining lives, drawing guns, and killing other human beings. It means saying “yes” to incarcerating millions of your fellow human beings.

Even if one believes smoking pot is dangerous, how can enforcing this belief with more laws, more police, more guns, more cages, and more caskets possibly be worth it?

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Founder and editor of Everything-Voluntary.com and UnschoolingDads.com, Skyler is a husband and unschooling father of three beautiful children. His writings include the column series “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” and “One Improved Unit,” and blog series “Two Cents“. Skyler also wrote the books No Hitting! and Toward a Free Society, and edited the books Everything Voluntary and Unschooling Dads. You can hear Skyler chatting away on his podcasts, Everything Voluntary and Thinking & Doing.