Drug Use for Grown-Ups

Dr. Carl Hart is living in the year 2100. His bold proclamation is elegant in its simplicity: criminalization of ANY recreational drug causes more inherent harm to society than good. For that reason, EVERY drug should be decriminalized, legalized, regulated, and taxed.

Just like ending prohibition in the 1920's. Just like ending marijuana criminalization today. Just like some states are even pushing for legalization of some psychedelics. This fight will not end until all drug prohibition ends and the words of the Declaration of Independence finally ring true: the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Everything we were taught in school and told by the Mainstream Media about recreational drugs is either completely wrong or incredibly sensationalized.
Police over the last century have demonized & lied about a specific drug and use those lies as post-hoc justifications for the unjust murders they committed, to further brutalize the poor and marginalized communities, and to justify future murders.

Any time you hear “[New scary drug] makes people aggressive, gives them immense strength, and makes them impervious to bullets,” or anything like that, it's lies made up by cops. Every time.

Remember that guy who “became a cannibal after taking bath salts?” Well turns out he didn't have any bath salts (MDPV, methylone, mephedrone, etc) in his system at all at the time of the assault. But that didn't stop the cops from lying and the media from buying & repeating their lies. And now that class of drug, which had NOTHING TO DO with that assault, is outlawed. For no good reason.
The major cause of drug-related deaths is user's poor understanding of how to administer the drug safely, and the fact that because these drugs exist on a black market, they are unregulated and no one really knows what they're buying. This can be remedied through legalization, regulation, and education.

Brutalizing drug users will never eliminate the use of these drugs. Ever. These laws are always enforced in a manner that primarily harms the poor and marginalized people, despite the fact that drugs ARE expensive, and frequently used by the well to do. But if you're rich and white, the cops aren't gonna bust down your door for wanting to have a good time in the privacy of your own home.
Crack and cocaine are the same exact drug chemically and pharmacologically, yet the sentences for possession are 18x greater for crack. Why? Because historically black people used crack and white people used cocaine. That's literally the only reason. (Luckily it's down from what it used to be before 2010, which was 100:1. Thanks Obama, I guess)

Drugs won the “war on drugs.” It's time to end it. It's time to stop the prison industrial complex from continuing to enslave people who dare to want to alter their minds. It's time to legalize.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. This is a fight that anyone who supports individual freedom and/or dismantling the racist, oppressive criminal justice system should support.