DEREGULATING DRUG USE

                          An Anarchist Perspective


The debate about drug use in this country is usually framed in terms of
continued criminalization vs. legalization.  The positions in this debate
mean continued harassment, including arrests, imprisonment, theft of
property, and, possibly in the near future, execution of drug dealers and
users, vs. legal regulation of drug use and sales, similar to that of
alcohol and cigarettes, including heavy taxation, and restraints on where,
when and to whom drugs can be sold.  Both of these positions are based on
the same assumption: government has the right to tell individuals what they
can and cannot do.  While legalization would surely be preferable to
continued criminalization, there is a third alternative: decriminalization
and deregulation.  Decriminalization and deregulation of drugs would mean no
laws against drugs, no government regulation of drugs sales and use, no
arrests, no prisons, no taxes.  Eliminating drug laws, instead of simply
replacing them with different laws, would produce a free market in drugs
where people would be free to sell, ingest, or inject whatever they wished,
without government interference.
     Drug use is a voluntary, non-violent activity, and should be an
individual decision, the business of no one but the user.  Government has
taken it upon itself to regulate drug use, just as it regulates alcohol use,
restricts abortion, and registers and drafts people, in order to better
control people.  Criminalization of drugs has produced, just as prohibition
of alcohol did, an enormous amount of violent crime.  Most of this crime is
motivated by the need to obtain money to pay the artificially inflated price
of illegal drugs.  This drug-associated crime is then used as an excuse for
police to indiscriminately harass young black men, stopping and searching,
and frequently arresting, them on the street, for no reason other than that
they live in a "high crime" area.  Doing away with drug laws would
dramatically lower the cost of drugs and thereby eliminate most street
crime, as well as remove the excuse police use to terrorize black people.
     Decriminalization and deregulation and the resultant competitive market
in drugs would produce purer and safer drugs, eliminating much of the death
and illness associated with drug use, most of which is caused by
contamination of drugs or needles and unreliable drug strength, not by the
nature of the drug itself.  Heroin is no more dangerous than aspirin if it
is carefully prepared without dangerous additives and injected with a
sterile needles.  And aspirin overdose can kill as easily as heroin
overdose, it just takes longer and feels worse.  Decriminalizing needle use
would virtually eliminate the transmission of AIDS among IV drug users, as
has been the experience in the 38 American states which do not restrict sale
of sterile needles.  Needle exchange programs are not enough; there need to
be more needles available to eliminate needle sharing.
     Besides abolishing laws against recreational drugs, eliminating
government regulation of "therapeutic" drugs would also benefit people.  The
FDA prevents many drugs from reaching the market, including treatments for
AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses.  And those that do eventually
become available are delayed for years by FDA rules, while thousands die. 
The government is currently responsible for restrictions on aerosolized
pentamidine, a drug which prevents Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, the most
frequent cause of death in people who have AIDS.  Just as drug laws lead to
deaths associated with street drugs and keep people from obtaining sterile
needles to prevent transmission of AIDS, drug laws are killing people with
AIDS by denying them effective treatment.  Drug laws in this country are
also preventing marketing of newly developed abortifacients, drugs which
induce abortion early in pregnancy, freeing women from their current
reliance on the medical establishment for abortion services.  These drugs
would put the decision about abortion where it belongs: with the individual.
     Eliminating drug laws would greatly increase people's options in the
areas of pleasure and health.  It would also reduce crime, reduce death and
illness associated with illegal drug use, and reduce deaths from AIDS and
other serious illnesses.  Individuals should be free to make their own
decisions about drug use, and all other aspects of their lives, without the
interference of government or "the community".

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                         of all or part of this to:

                      Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade
                                (BAD Brigade)
                                 PO Box 1323
                             Cambridge, MA 02238

                      Internet: bbrigade@world.std.com

                               November, 1988