This blog post will continue my overview of Douglas Husak’s positive case for the decriminalization of recreational drug use which I began in my previous post. The argument defended in that post is summarized as follows:

No one should be punished without excellent reason to do so. There is no good reason to punish recreational drug users. There are good reasons to allow individuals to engage in risky behaviors, so long as those behaviors do not violate the rights of others. Therefore, recreational drug users should not be punished. Jail, Prison, Probation, and Fines are all forms of punishment. Therefore, Jail, Prison, Probation, and Fines for recreational drug use ought to be abolished (Decriminalization).

In part 1 of this series I covered one argument Husak offers in support of premise 3, which can be quickly recapped as follows:

The first step in the positive case is to establish that drug use is instrumentally valuable insofar as we value and tolerate recreation when doing so does not infringe on the rights of others. We value recreation and we value the ability to steer our consciousness and moods in directions we deem desirable (after all, what are alcohol and tobacco for if not for these purposes?) Recreational drug use allows us to do this. We also tolerate risky recreational activities that are equally or more dangerous than recreational drug use, and the idea that the state ought to punish individuals who engage in extremely dangerous hobbies like underwater cave diving conflicts with our intuitions about what behaviors the state can justifiably seek to punish. Consequently, there is instrumental value in recreational drug use, value that we recognize in other avenues as not being worthy of punishment. Therefore, we have provided at least one positive reason for the decriminalization of recreational drug use.

Part 2 of this series will focus on the second argument Husak advances in support of premise 3, an argument which he calls the counterproductive consequences approach. This argument aims to establish that the current policy of punishing recreational drug users has resulted in and continues to lead to several bad unintended consequences. Given the seriousness of these unintended consequences and the tangible harms they inflict, drug prohibition would have to accomplish enormous benefits in order to justify and offset the continued harms produced by the ongoing policy of drug prohibition. Since our punitive policies do not accomplish these benefits, decriminalization is a preferable approach to drug policy over continued prohibition. I should note that Huzak’s case is far from comprehensive and encourages the reader to read the primary literature for fuller details. Given this lack of comprehensiveness I will provide further support for many of his contentions by citing the relevant literature to fill any gaps I have determined were left in need of further evidence in the hopes of providing a richer defense of this very serious contemporary moral problem.

Husak’s case rests on listing seven respects in which our policy of punishing illicit drug users is counterproductive. These steps are as follow: