I know, I know. The libertarian wants to legalize drugs. It’s the ultimate cliché.

But if we are looking for a switch to flip, a single fix that would radically reset some of the most intractably broken aspects of the American political system, you’re not going to do better than ending the war on drugs. The political desire to stop people from getting high has caused massive suffering for millions—while not actually making much of a dent in either the demand for or the supply of intoxicants. It’s not just a criminal justice issue; the dysfunction of drug prohibition bleeds into immigration, foreign policy, health care, debt and much more.


Just legalizing marijuana won’t do it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be thrilled if that happened nationwide. But to get the real world-changing payoff, the war on all drugs must be called off completely. The entire black market—from producers to distributors to consumers—must be brought out into the sunlight.

Nearly all Americans consume some form of psychoactive substance on a regular basis while still functioning just fine. The problem is when certain drug commerce must be done under cover of darkness. Because when something goes wrong in illegal transactions, there are no safety nets. There are no police to summon, no courts to arbitrate, no insurance companies to manage risk, and perhaps not even a doctor to call in an emergency. That lack of recourse is what leads to violence, desperation, death and despair. As long as any drug remains illegal, the black market will adapt and continue to thrive.

After all, the U.S. has been waging this war since 1971, yet illegal drugs remain relatively inexpensive and widely available.


Drug prohibition has failed. Yet we continue to pour tens of billions of dollars into domestic and foreign drug enforcement. Many hundreds of thousands of Americans languish in prison for drug-related crimes. Race relations are poisoned by unequal enforcement and unequal punishment for drug users and sellers of color. Patients suffer horribly, unable to get legal medication for their pain, while extortionary black markets do a lively trade in diverted pills and more illicit substitutes. Drug users are defrauded and poisoned every day by dealers who do not fear consequences. We are trapped in decades-long wars with drug-producing foreign countries. Our borders are swollen with refugees from the mess that our war on drugs has helped to create in their homelands.

These problems won’t go away instantly with legalization. But it is undeniable that drug prohibition lurks under the surface of nearly every hot-button political issue. The human suffering caused by the brutal, abysmal failure of the war on drugs has been tolerated for too long.