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By Donny Smith Guest Writer dsmith23@my.westga.edu
To what extent do we possess the supposed self-evident and inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Jacob Lovell gives two reasons why drugs should be legalized. First, because to prohibit their use is a violation of one's "sovereign authority concerning his or her own body." However, this right to one's own body is only at first glance an inalienable human right. In the event that one performs something on his or her own body that infringes upon someone else's basic human rights, this "sovereign authority" ceases to be a right. In other words, we should not have the right of sovereign authority over our bodies protected if our actions infringe upon other persons' rights against their wishes.
The second reason Lovell states is that drug laws have the opposite effect of their intention, increasing crime instead of reducing it, and introducing more dangerous drugs into society. Lovell did not address this issue in depth, undoubtedly due to length restrictions of a newspaper article and the complexity of the subject. As such, I will not address this reason at length, as Lovell did not.
In the case of drugs, we do not have an inalienable right to put whatever we want into our bodies if it violates any other person's human rights. Let's look at alcohol, a legal and widely used drug (though keep in mind that its legality has no significance in the point I'm trying to make). In 2005, 16,885 people died in the US from alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. That's 39% of all traffic-related deaths that year. 414 of those deaths were children aged 14 and younger, and 48 of those children were killed either walking or riding their bikes. And while only 16,885 died, 1.4 million people were arrested that year for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. Those 1.4 million and their potential victims (which could have been you or me) were the lucky ones. Drugs other than alcohol were involved in 18% of traffic-related deaths that year, bringing the total to 57% of traffic-related deaths that involved drugs.
Lovell would claim that these people have a right to consume alcohol because they may do with their bodies as they please. However, alcohol impaired the judgment and coordination of the users enough that 414 children died in 2005. Those who drove under the influence violated human rights. Keep in mind that these statistics only account for deaths, not injuries, be they minor or permanent and life-changing, not to mention simple property damage, none of which the drivers had a right to cause. Because most (if not all) illegal drugs impair judgment, users act with compulsion and/or faulty reasoning, and therefore do not always take into account other people's human rights. They would not have enough sense, caution, or fear to know that getting in a car is a bad idea and that they could violate others' rights. Since this impairment of rationality is essentially a certainty, there is always a chance that someone else's rights will be infringed when such drugs are used. Therefore, it is not one's inalienable right to consume illegal drugs, since it needlessly puts other people in harm's way.
Because Lovell does not elucidate any other rights we have that allow us to take drugs, the only other reason stated for the legalization of drugs is the illegitimacy of drug laws. This is a tricky topic though, and complete legalization may lead to some tough dilemmas. For example, if we legalize marijuana, should there be an age restriction? Marijuana impairs coordination and is likely to cause car accidents just as alcohol does, so my instinct tells me that there should be a restriction. But, if we impose an age restriction, then the "allure" factor of the drug is still present, only now marijuana would be much more accessible-as accessible as alcohol for teenagers is now. As I said in the beginning, this question and more are far too complex to answer at reasonable length here. At any rate, I think Lovell's solution, that we let "free people . . . decide how to vanquish the vices of society," sounds vague and just as likely for disaster as our nation's current route.
I hope that, if not already, our government can soon begin to approach this situation with morality, principle, and humility in mind. I hope we can keep an open mind when it comes to drug legislation, and neither cater to stubborn traditionalists nor irrational fanatics in our decision making. Of course, that remains to be seen, and personally, I wouldn't hold my breath.
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