FROM CRIMINALIZATION TO REHABILITATION: Abandoning “The War on Drugs” THESIS EDIT | Page 20

whether a law we enact is founded upon moral or ethical principles, as long as the law “gets the
job done,” so to speak.
Regardless of which philosophical approach you might take of the law, whether you
believe law should be based in morality, or whether you see law as merely an instrumentality,
criminalizing drug use fails across the board.
First let us consider the morality-based approach. Morally, criminalizing drug use and
addiction fails, because we need to approach addicts with compassion and understanding.
Addicts are sick individuals who need treatment and support. They need medical attention,
psychological therapy, and a helping hand. Throwing them in prison does nothing for their
recovery or their bad habits. Addicts are troubled human beings who need to be treated as such.
Condemnation and punishment makes no sense in this case.
Morally, this is a very simple case. If someone is sick and in pain, we have a moral duty,
as human beings, to help that person. There will undoubtedly be obstacles along the way, and we
are in need of new and creative solutions to this very old problem, but we have to find better
ways to treat addicts. Alienating them and shaming them for a disease they have no control over
is cruel. Putting addicts in prison is like putting a schizophrenic in prison. Instead of giving them
the medical attention that they desperately require, they are being condemned and punished for
their disease. This is a totally and completely inhumane way of dealing with the situation. In
agreement, Brand states in his documentary that “this is an area where we need compassion and
tolerance, not just because that’s the human thing to do, but because that will help us to reach an
appropriate solution.”
Drug laws should ideally seek to decrease drug use, decrease the spread of drug-related
diseases, eliminate the black-market economy, lower levels of crime, get rid of the prison