Can The Legalisation Of Drugs Be Justified Philosophy Essay

Can The Legalisation Of Drugs Be Justified Philosophy establishWhen we want to decide if a point total should be legalized, by which I bastardly the hoagie side is not b arely when abateed and is lendable to non-professional recreational exercisers, the world-class enquiry should be into whether or not masses depart come to disparage as a turn up of the medicate be made operational. But this assumption rests upon an initial normative honorable decision where we ask on what causal agency a governing or legal entity should be entitled to prohibit sure substances by use of force and coercion. John Stuart Mill puts forward two mathematical intends which moldiness be met for a government to interfere with some ones privacy and freedom of behaviour. The first tenet is what I go away describe as the reproach doctrine, spot the second one is what I ordain call Mills slowly paternalism, which is a practical extension of the disablement prescript.Mill fence ins that the only criteria for modification freedom of sort with legal or physical measures are if the consequences of the actions give in rail at to some other(a) member of order. If a persons activities do not result in harm to another person therefore a government has no rational grounds for pr correctting that behavior, even if the behavior breaks a social forbidden. As Mill puts it the only purpose for which supply cornerstone be rightfully exercised over any member of a fine-tune community is to prevent harm to others1. According to the harm principle, then, we would produce grounds to legalize doses as prospicient as we could see no vogue in which this would result in harm to another person. This means that harm is a jointly sufficient and necessary condition for prohibiting a substance or a type of behavior. If these conditions are not met then we turn over no rational grounds for making medicates illegal. The practical implementation of this principle means we would be on the buttonified in prohibiting a school transport driver from green goddess piece of assnabis while driving, as this could result in harm to other mass, but we would not be justified in stopping him from smoking cannabis in his deliver home.The second condition, which follows course from the harm principle, is a condition of soft paternalism. If we are entitled to prohibit types of behavior in order to reduce harm then it follows that harm can befall someone out-of-pocket to ignorance and lack of accord. The soft paternalist stance means that we would be entitled to prohibit someone from taking a dose if they did not know the possible slanderous consequences of taking the drug or if they were not of a sufficient metal land to hold dear any danger. If we were to legalize drugs then we would as well as drive home to satisfy the sub conditions of consent and fore knowledge, which are jointly sufficient conditions for freedom of behavior a longsighted with the harm principle. The practical results of this policy would mean that a government would fall in no grounds in preventing someone from harming themselves by use drugs which are highly habit-forming and potentially self destructive drugs such as heroin as long as they consented (i.e. acted on their own free will) to using the drug and had fore knowledge of the consequences. We would only put on selling heroin illegal to children or people who were not entirely responsible for their own behavior such as mentally disenable people or insane people. We would also be obliged to gravel the consequences of taking such a drug clear to the consumer.The first possible objection to the conclusion of Mills argument outlined above is that thither are far reaching social consequences to legalizing drugs which the harm principle does not cover. We could tip over, for example, the extortionate cost of drug treatment which it could fall on the state to provide. We might also be suspicious that legalizing drugs and making them available on such a wide scale would result in a object lessonistic decline and a threat to an orderly civilized community. These objections essentially expose Mills harm principle and soft paternalism as being socially myopic. Although drug related behavior which may result in harm befalling people other than the drug taker are a priori undesirable, and that harm is therefore a sufficient condition for prohibiting drug use, it is not the only sufficient condition. It does not follow that, just because respective(prenominal) recreational drug use does not result in immediate harm to another individual, it will not cause havoc if it became a widespread cultural practice. Mills argument for justifying the legitimation of drugs, his harm principle, cannot be the sole criteria for making ethical judgments. This means that the harm condition may be a sufficient condition for deciding if drugs should be legalized, but it does not mean that it i s the sole sufficient condition nor does it mean that it is a necessary condition.The superman to be made here is, I think, that normative deliberations over ethical first principles are inconclusive due to this type of enquiry not being able to really see what the consequences of drug legalization are. We should addendum the harm principle and soft paternalism with descriptive ethical questions, such as what the cost of the war against drugs? W.F Buckley Jr. points out the wider social implications of drug taking in a social environment where it is prohibited by law. The detail that drugs are illegal makes them extremely expensive which mean that many drugs users must(prenominal) turn to theft to satisfy their habit, which may require stealing up to $5,000 worth of jewels or cars2. If the fact that drugs are illegal results in a likelihood of harm to other people then it follows that we should at least consider the legalization of some drugs on these grounds. The harm principle , then, must be considered in a wide scope which include sociological and economic considerations such as those pointed out by Buckley.Another possible objection to the legalization of drugs due to Mills conditions being met is that some drugs are highly habit-forming, so addictive that it constitutes a breech of an individuals freedom of will. An individual cannot continue to consent to use drugs if he is devoted in an extreme physiological instinct to a drug such as heroin. Strong drug dependency does not satisfy the consent condition of Mills harm principle which means that we should prohibit someone from obtaining such a drug even though he consents to this dependency initially. Soft paternalism would extent to prohibiting the sale of highly addictive drugs in order to protect the individuals legal and moral autonomy. The harm principle here is too narrow to encompass the unique effects drug taking can have. We must instead rely upon a Kantian understanding of the moral ag ent, in which we understand a moral agent is an end in itself, and since powerful addiction would violate this, then we should prohibit highly addictive drugs. Kants categorical imperative claims that human freedom is realised in the adoption of humanity as an end in itself.3This means that even though someone consents and has foreordination of drug addiction and decides to get himself addicted to drugs his decision is essentially immoral. A possible condition for the legalization of a drug could be that it is not so addictive that it will interfere with an individuals autonomy or encourage him to act in government agencys which are harmful to him. If we assent to these arguments there would be no grounds to justify the legalization of heroin while there would be grounds to legalize and permit the use of drugs like cannabis and salvia divinorum which are not highly addictive in a physiological sense.The problem with this objection can be outlined by elucidative what exactly free will is, i.e. what conditions have to be met for an individual to have free will. Frankfurt defines the freedom of will as being the speculation of having done otherwise4, which means that as long as ones will is synchronized with ones actions, one has free will. If you desired not to take a drug and someone physically forced you to do this you would not have free will as you could not have done otherwise. Frankfurts stance on free will is what I will describe as a coherentist position, by which I mean an individual acts freely if his essential intentions coincide with their behaviour even if they are unable to prevent this behaviour. If an individual who is addicted to drugs and is unable to act in any other way because of this then this is still an instance of free will as long as this behaviour coheres with previous decisions made under consent and foreknowledge. A heroin addict is not forced to take drugs even when addicted in the sense that they could have done otherwise. Alt hough his behaviour is determined by the drugs his will is not impeded in the way that brainwashing or direct physical coercion by another person will impede free will. Kane describes the condition of personal autonomy as the power to be the ultimate producers of ones own end and the power to make choices which can only and finally be explained in terms of ones own will (i.e., character, motives, and efforts of will) .5 If these conditions are met then there is no realistic breech of the consent and foreknowledge and there is no ground to prevent the sale of highly addictive drugs.We can conclude, in regard to the above arguments, that Mills harm principle and the sub-conditions of assent and foreknowledge give grounds for legalizing the sale of drugs as long as these conditions are met. The only grounds on which we could make a drug like heroin illegal is by taking a what I will describe as a strong paternalist shape up to welfare, in which citizens are prohibited from partaking i n activities which will inflict harm of them even though they themselves desire or are aware of harmful consequences. This must be balanced, however, upon the implications of actually making these activities illegal. A strong paternalist onset to car safety is to make it illegal for motorists not to wear seatbelts. there are only positive consequences of this legislation. Making heroin illegal, on the other hand, increases the price of heroin to levels only affordable by serious crime, increases the insecurityiness of negative health implications do to unregulated heroin production and includes the risk of people infecting themselves by using unregulated drug taking equipment and diverts specie and resources into enforcing these laws at the expense of others. schoolmaster Devlin, on the other hand, argues against the legalization of drugs considered taboo or immoral in a society from a enamour point which does not necessarily rely on the negative consequences to individuals or the harm to an individuals autonomy. Lord Delvin argues, first of all, that any social group posses a right to protect its own populace. He then goes on to argue that particular morals and ethical standards which a community stands by should be enforced to protect the existence of a community. He then concludes that moral standards can be maintained by force and the curtailing of individual liberty. Society, he claims, may use the law to preserve morality in the equal way it uses it to safeguard anything else if it is essential to its existence.6If it could be shown that the legalization of drugs such as cannabis or heroin would contradict moral standards then these deviations from the societys shared morality are capable in their nature of threatening the existence of society and therefore cannot be put beyond the law.7 The problem with Lord Delvins argument is that it fails to give an adequate explanation as to why a deviation from a routine moral standard is necessarily a thr eat to a societys existence. It simply does not follow that if an individual practises certain types of behaviour in the privacy of his own home, such as smoking cannabis, this results in a negative impact to the survival of a society. It also does not take into account that particular customs of a society may have evolved to meet specific needs which is no eight-day relevant. On the other hand, moral standards may have been enforced due to a lack of scientific understanding. It is certainly true that widespread incest could result in a threat to the existence of society due to transmittable diseases becoming more prevalent in society, and it is therefore rational and just to enforce compliance to non-incestuous marriage. But it difficult to see how the legalization of a non addictive hallucinogenic drug with few side effects during fit consumption could pose any threat to a societys existence.To conclude, I will summarize the conditions which should be met for the legalization o f a substance to be considered ethically legitimate. It must first of all only be made available to those who consent and have foreknowledge of the consequences of the drug, no matter how addictive or harmful it may be when it is consumed. The results of the consumption of the drug should also have no negative consequences towards society at large. This could mean that a drug which, when consumed, could result in harmful environmental impact or footing to others who are not consuming the drug, should be banned. This could also mean that people are prohibited from taking the drug at particular state-supported locations. It could also mean that the drug is only allowed be consumed at finicky facilities in which it can be regulated. The practical implementation of this could mean that one would be permitted to smoke cannabis consume ecstasy at particular venues.