The War on Drugs Is Lost: Thomas Szasz

Dr. Szasz, of the-Department of Psychiatry at Syracuse University, has for many years argued, the medical case that proscribed drugs, while catastrophic in their effect on some people, are, when used by most, taken without permanent damage. He has also, in his numerous books, pleaded the libertarian point, namely that drug-taking is the individuales business and responsibility.

THE war on drugs is a mass movement characterized by the demonizing, as Chief McNamara suggests, of certain objects and persons (“drugs,” “addicts,” “traffickers”) as the incarnations of evil. Hence, it is foolish to dwell on the drug prohibitionist’s failure to attain his avowed aims. Since he wages war on evil, his very effort is synonymous with success. It is a fatal weakness of prudential critiques of drug policy that they ignore the “religious” character of the war on drugs.

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Thomas S. Szasz

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Dr. Szasz, of the-Department of Psychiatry at Syracuse University, has for many years argued, the medical case that proscribed drugs, while catastrophic in their effect on some people, are, when used by most, taken without permanent damage. He has also, in his numerous books, pleaded the libertarian point, namely that drug-taking is the individuales business and responsibility.

THE war on drugs is a mass movement characterized by the demonizing, as Chief McNamara suggests, of certain objects and persons (“drugs,” “addicts,” “traffickers”) as the incarnations of evil. Hence, it is foolish to dwell on the drug prohibitionist’s failure to attain his avowed aims. Since he wages war on evil, his very effort is synonymous with success. It is a fatal weakness of prudential critiques of drug policy that they ignore the “religious” character of the war on drugs.