MP1001: Moral Problems: Drugs

The moral questions:

1. Under what circumstances is it wrong to take drugs?
2. Under what circumstances is it wrong to supply someone with drugs?
3. Under what circumstances is it right to stop someone from doing either of these things? What is the most effective and morally appropriate way of doing so?

1. Is it wrong to take drugs?

The argument against the wrongness of drug-taking:

It doesn’t harm anyone else, so how can it be morally wrong?

Arguments for the wrongness of drug-taking:

i. It does harm others.

ii. It can be morally wrong to harm oneself, if it expresses self-hatred, cowardice or lack of self-respect.

2. Is the commercial selling of drugs wrong?

Many drugs are harmful; and harming others for profit is wrong.

Doing so by addicting those you harm is worse, because you’re taking away their freedom to choose not

to be harmed.

3a. Is it right to prevent people from supplying drugs?

Traffickers of hard drugs are acting wrongly. Punishment is therefore justified because they deserve it,

or to deter other potential drugs-traffickers.

3b. Is it right for the state to prevent people from taking drugs?

The paternalistic argument: the state ought to prevent people from engaging in acts of self-harm.

The argument against paternalistic state intervention:

Mill’s harm principle: “….the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in

interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is… to prevent harm to others.”

It is inappropriate for the state to intervene in behaviour that harms only the agent.

The case for paternalist state intervention:

Utilitarian: paternalistic intervention may preserve worthwhile lives.

Kantian: when people act irrationally, they are not acting autonomously.

The form of state intervention should be whatever is most likely to prevent drug-abuse and rehabilitate drugs-takers.

The argument from the prevention of harm. Preventing harms to others that result from drugs-use.

most of these harms result from the criminalisation of drugs-taking

Two kinds of arguments in favour of state intervention:

i.

n.b. it can be argued that.

ii. Preventing harms to the drugs-taker himself or herself.

This is a paternalistic argument, that the state should sometimes intervene in people’s lives to prevent them from engaging in self-destructive behaviour.

Should drugs-taking be prohibited by enforcing legal penalties?

Arguments in favour:

i. This is the most effective deterrent.

ii. If drugs were legal, they would be even easier to get hold of.

Arguments against:

i. Most of the harms to others resulting from drug-use arise directly from the criminalisation of drugs-use.

ii. Punitive measures are not morally appropriate for behaviour that harms only the agent him or herself.

iii. Legal penalties are not an effective deterrent.

iv. Legal penalties mean the drugs-taker is less likely to be rehabilitated, and more likely to be physically and emotionally harmed by the drug-taking.