The current War on Some Drugs is strong enough to destroy civil liberties, but not so strong that it can hurt drug use.

A serious War on Drugs, where addicts were euthanatized, would be super-effective at killing off the drug consumption problem.

But no government could resist that kind of power. They would keep the moral panic going, they would announce that their personal political enemies were secret drug addicts, they would end up killing everyone who looked at them funny.

I think that’s how we got here, isn’t it?

Sad to say, I think that the only real solution lies in breeding the addiction-prone genes out of the population. You are not going to stop the addict from getting their drug, via any external force or solution. The only thing that’s going to work is the addict gaining the realization that they’re killing themselves, and then quitting on their own. Until that point, the only real solution that doesn’t sacrifice the rest of our civil liberties in the name of saving the unfit from themselves is to make drugs in general legal and easily available. I’d be for allowing the sale of things like heroin and other “hard” drugs only to those who voluntarily undergo sterilization, but the bleeding hearts of the world won’t like that idea.

You can’t legislate morality or moral fortitude; either a population has it, or they don’t. About all you can do is what we’ve been doing by insulating these people from the consequences of their actions, and that’s to gradually erode the idea of civil liberty and free will. Addicts are gonna addict, and you can’t fix that. All you can do is ameliorate the effect, and in order to minimize the effect on general society, hasten the breeding of that trait out of the population. Hell, I’d consider putting free heroin distribution sites up on inner-city street corners, and let the population prone to abusing drugs eliminate themselves. You want a long-term fix? That’s actually the most humane one I can think of–Let them go out on a wave of opioid bliss. Just ensure that they’re not having any kids with the same issues, so if you want your free drugs, there go your reproductive rights. Give it three generations, and we’ll solve the problem humanely, and still have our civil rights along with it.

The only other way to avoid the problem would be a draconian regime of killing every addict and dealer in the country, and I just can’t see that going into effect. Half-measures don’t work–We can see the effects of those, all around us. Either it is legal to do what you like with your body, or it isn’t. If it is, which is what the implications of liberty actually are, then the only path is full legalization. If it isn’t, then we need to enact the same measures the Communist Chinese used in fighting opium addiction, which means killing a lot of people. You only get to pick one, I’m afraid.

Nor came anything positive from the ongoing war on drugs, it’s not like it actually achieved the goal of removing drugs from society, if this was true, if cocainized negroes threatening white women were gone from the streets, one could even support it!

I also recommend the Joe Rogan Experience podcast #469 with Dr. Carl Hart, an associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University. He is known for his research in drug abuse and drug addiction, who dispels a few drug related myths…

The drugs are now mostly coming from Mexico. The porous border has allowed heroin to flood into the country, much more than when Asia was the main source.

Since the drugs have fewer stops along the way, the supply is purer and more damaging. Overdoses are becoming an epidemic. Medical supplies won’t be able to compete on potency.

The best answer is interdiction and quarantine. It sounds harsh, but if you believe the free and open flows of commerce are the source of a successful market then cutting off supply is the way to kill that market.