1 files changed, 5 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/content/entry/legalize-all-drugs.md b/content/entry/legalize-all-drugs.md
index 5b8bf0f..a9edd31 100644
--- a/content/entry/legalize-all-drugs.md
+++ b/content/entry/legalize-all-drugs.md
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ draft: false
 # History Lesson
 A century ago, alcohol prohibition in the United States began with the 18th amendment[1] prohibiting the production, importation and sale of alcoholic beverages and ended in 1933 with the 21st amendment[2]. The goal of prohibition was to reduce alcohol consumption. While prohibition succeeded in reducing alcohol consumption somewhat, it resulted in many unintended consequences including public health problems, an increase in organized crime, and corruption of law enforcement.
 
-The war on "drugs" only played a small part of law enforcement efforts on the whole until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981. Reagan expanded the drug war with a focus on criminal penalties instead of treatment. His policies resulted in a massive increase in incarcerations of nonviolent drug users. His wife Nancy Reagan started the Just Say No[3] campaign to teach schoolchildren not to use drugs. It was about as effective at reducing drug use as abstinence-based sex education is at reducing sex. The most popular Just Say No program, DARE[4], showed zero effect on drug use according to 20 controlled studies[5]. Perhaps that's because DARE spreads lies and gives children a contorted picture of the war on drugs? In 1986, congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act changing federal supervised release[6] programs increasing focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation, prohibiting analogs of controlled substances[7] and requiring mandatory minimum sentences[8] for nonviolent drug users. The sentencing discrepency between crack and powder cocaine resulted in an uneven increase in incarceration rates for black people. Doesn't that sound familiar?
+The war on "drugs" only played a small part of law enforcement efforts on the whole until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981. Reagan expanded the drug war with a focus on criminal penalties instead of treatment. His policies resulted in a massive increase in incarcerations of nonviolent drug users. His wife Nancy Reagan started the Just Say No[3] campaign to teach schoolchildren not to use drugs. It was about as effective at reducing drug use as abstinence-based sex education is at reducing sex. The most popular Just Say No program, DARE[4], showed zero effect on drug use according to 20 controlled studies[5]. Perhaps that's because DARE spreads lies and gives children a contorted picture of the war on drugs? In 1986, congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act changing federal supervised release[6] programs increasing focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation, prohibiting analogs of controlled substances[7] and requiring mandatory minimum sentences[8] for nonviolent drug users. The sentencing discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine resulted in an uneven increase in incarceration rates for black people. Doesn't that sound familiar?
 
 In 2020, a whole century since the beginning of prohibition era, there are signs that we are finally learning what history has to teach us: The unintended consequences of drug prohibition are worse than the problem it's meant to solve. As of today, medical cannabis use is legalized in 35 states. The recreational use of cannabis is legalized in 15 states. 16 states have decriminalized cannabis use. Up to 40 states might allow some form of marijuana legalization[9] by the end of 2020. Just a few days ago Oregon became the first state to legalize magic mushrooms for medical use and decriminalize "street drugs". People found in possession of street drugs will face a ticket and a 100 dollar fine rather than a felony. They will optionally be offered treatment. Despite recent progress, the war on "drugs" is still being waged almost 50 years later and drugs are cheaper and easier to acquire than ever. And that's where we're at today.
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ I could argue why drugs should be legalized without giving you the history lesso
 ## Personal Autonomy
 Drugs should be legal because your own body belongs to you, not the government. If I want to chop my finger off so I only have 4 fingers, I should be able to do it. You can say it's the dumbest thing you've ever heard of, that something's wrong with me, that no one in their right mind would do such a thing, but it's my finger. I'm not by any means comparing doing drugs to cutting your own finger off. Depending on which drug you do, it can be far less dangerous or far more dangerous than cutting your own finger off. Cutting your own finger off also doesn't have any perceivable benefits whereas drugs do. That's why people do them. Making this argument makes me sound like I lean libertarian, but I don't think personal autonomy is without limits.
 
-With abortion, there is another life (or potential human life) at stake. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, there is at least a potential human life there that you have to take into account in your calculation of banning abortion versus legalizing it. With suicide, it is your own life you are taking. It belongs to you. But it might make sense for agents of the state to have the authority to prevent you from committing suicide if you are in a crisis situation. Although it is your own life and belongs to you as far as the government should be concerned, your future self might be glad someone stopped you. Much like abortion, you can make the case that there is a potential happy human life that is being ended. With explicit informed patient consent as in euthenasia, that argument is much harder to make especially when someone is in great pain, terminally ill, and there is no prospect of future happiness. Anyway, the point is that personal autonomy isn't an absolute. However, in general, you should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others.
+With abortion, there is another life (or potential human life) at stake. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, there is at least a potential human life there that you have to take into account in your calculation of banning abortion versus legalizing it. With suicide, it is your own life you are taking. It belongs to you. But it might make sense for agents of the state to have the authority to prevent you from committing suicide if you are in a crisis situation. Although it is your own life and belongs to you as far as the government should be concerned, your future self might be glad someone stopped you. Much like abortion, you can make the case that there is a potential happy human life that is being ended. With explicit informed patient consent as in euthanasia, that argument is much harder to make especially when someone is in great pain, terminally ill, and there is no prospect of future happiness. Anyway, the point is that personal autonomy isn't an absolute. However, in general, you should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others.
 
 You might object that while drug use may not infringe upon others' rights, it may affect them negatively even if you use drugs responsibly. So can watching too much TV, social media, and a million other things we don't criminalize. While watching too much TV is bad for you, to criminalize watching too much TV would be tyrannical because it means the government gains the right to restrict your viewing. My right to extend my fist ends at your face. Likewise, the right to do drugs, or as I'll call it, the right to access alternative states of body and mind, means the government isn't allowed to close you off from having certain types of experiences. If those states of mind produced by drugs are inconvenient for some government agenda like war, then that's too bad. There is no "right for the government to restrict states of consciousness aversive to conflict".
 
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Wherever there is an organized illicit drug industry, there is also going to be
 The bottom line is dealing with the cartels is mutually beneficial for those in power, so long as they don't get caught. Those in government and the police have all the wrong economic incentives when it comes to the drug war. In some government positions in countries with rampant corruption, it's probably an unwritten job requirement to work with the cartels. We'll probably never know which positions those are for sure though. Corruption happens in the shadows and it's always difficult to produce any concrete evidence. Legalizing drugs would eliminate the cartel's source of profit, which means politicians would no longer have any financial incentive to work with them. It follows that drug-related government and police corruption would decrease.
 
 ## Improved Police-Community Relations
-The war on "drugs" is responsible for police militarization more than anything else. Peaceful protestors and rioters face chemical irritants, armored vehicles and riot gear because the war on "drugs" has ensured police have military-style gear. Police militarization causes officers to view themselves as a confrontational force instead of community-oriented. In the eyes of the citizenry, this makes police look like an occupying force rather than public servants.
+The war on "drugs" is responsible for police militarization more than anything else. Peaceful protesters and rioters face chemical irritants, armored vehicles and riot gear because the war on "drugs" has ensured police have military-style gear. Police militarization causes officers to view themselves as a confrontational force instead of community-oriented. In the eyes of the citizenry, this makes police look like an occupying force rather than public servants.
 
 I'm not dumping all the blame on cops either. The job of police officers is to enforce the law. When the law is unjust, the police still have to enforce it. It's not fair on them because it makes them look bad. Ending the war on "drugs" would do so much for police-community relations. Children wouldn't have to watch their parents hauled off to jail for choosing to engage in a victimless activity. Families wouldn't be torn apart. Drug-related police corruption would end, as I talked about in the above section. Police departments could shift their resources toward stopping murderers and rapists, people causing real harm to society. Without ending the war on "drugs", public confidence in policing will continue to erode. In the year 2020 where we have nationwide demonstrations against police brutality[14], the Justice Department declaring NYC, Portland and Seattle "Anarchist Jurisdictions"[15], and police abandoning precincts[16], police definitely shouldn't be perpetuating a failed drug war that has lasted half a century and will only further diminish public trust in the police.
 
@@ -51,12 +51,12 @@ First off, I need to explain the difference between the two. In general, decrimi
 If you want to deter drug use, then there are better approaches than not fully legalizing drugs. This is where you could get creative. As a single example, turn the idea of a fine on its head. Offer a cash reward to addicts for staying clean. Consider cultural influences and other societal factors that may be causing people to turn toward drugs, such as poverty or mental illness. Perhaps the reason drug use is so high is because society has other problems that aren't being attended to, and drugs are just a symptom of it. This is where policy could be informed by sociological research. If you think criminalizing or not fully legalizing drugs is the only way to deter their use, then I'd encourage you to think more creatively.
 
 # Drug Regulation
-Let's move on to regulation. Regulation of drugs is important for ensuring drug quality, fair pricing, safety and education. But it's also probably a good idea not to regulate drugs so heavily that a sizeable black market continues to exist. I'm not going to focus on regulation other than to say deciding on the regulations should be an evidence-based process. Lawmakers have almost 50 years of evidence on how not to treat drugs in society, so maybe they can learn from past mistakes and other countries that have decriminalized drugs and come up with regulations as drugs are legalized.
+Let's move on to regulation. Regulation of drugs is important for ensuring drug quality, fair pricing, safety and education. But it's also probably a good idea not to regulate drugs so heavily that a sizable black market continues to exist. I'm not going to focus on regulation other than to say deciding on the regulations should be an evidence-based process. Lawmakers have almost 50 years of evidence on how not to treat drugs in society, so maybe they can learn from past mistakes and other countries that have decriminalized drugs and come up with regulations as drugs are legalized.
 
 # Drug Education
 As for education, let's talk about some of the things schools shouldn't do. First and foremost, school drug education programs should stop lying to children about drugs. Schools should stop teaching children that every hard drug user is an addict. Schools should stop teaching abstinence as the only practical way of protecting oneself from harmful drugs. And they should stop using green-tinted goggles to mimic the effects of marijuana. Yes, they actually did that[19].
 
-So what should schools do? They should tell the truth. They should teach that the war on "drugs" has been one of the greatest moral failures of our time, a colossal waste of money, time, resources and human life that could have been better spent on literally anything else. Education programs should provide a fairminded, evidence-based view of the advantages and disadvantages of drug use per each drug. Drug education programs need to instruct young adults which drugs are worth doing, which are not, how often and in what setting, once they are of age. Drug education should come before most young adults are offered drugs. Program instructors could be social workers instead of police officers because drug addiction is not a criminal issue. It's a health issue. As we end the war on drugs, social workers should take responsibility for dealing with drug-related issues. Social workers can be trained based on prior drug research and hear testimony from non-addicted healthy drug users and addicts alike so they can get an accurate sense of the positive and negative effects of different drugs. This would put them in a good position to educate youth about drugs.
+So what should schools do? They should tell the truth. They should teach that the war on "drugs" has been one of the greatest moral failures of our time, a colossal waste of money, time, resources and human life that could have been better spent on literally anything else. Education programs should provide a fair-minded, evidence-based view of the advantages and disadvantages of drug use per each drug. Drug education programs need to instruct young adults which drugs are worth doing, which are not, how often and in what setting, once they are of age. Drug education should come before most young adults are offered drugs. Program instructors could be social workers instead of police officers because drug addiction is not a criminal issue. It's a health issue. As we end the war on drugs, social workers should take responsibility for dealing with drug-related issues. Social workers can be trained based on prior drug research and hear testimony from non-addicted healthy drug users and addicts alike so they can get an accurate sense of the positive and negative effects of different drugs. This would put them in a good position to educate youth about drugs.
 
 # Post Drug War Society
 Now that I've covered a few points on education, how will we convert our current society into a post drug war society? One answer is we need better resources for treating drug addiction. Education can only do so much if there aren't effective resources out there. Drug treatment centers don't even have to abide by federal guidelines and it's debatable if they even work at all. That has to change. They need to be evidence-based and evaluated for effectiveness.