Does the Drug War Save Lives?
Most people automatically assume the War on Drugs is necessary. It's something Americans have taken for granted. But what if it is causing more harm than good?
Why would America continue supporting a policy that has failed for nearly a hundred years? The reason is simple: Fear of trying something different.
Such is the case with the disastrous War on Drugs, which even its proponents admit is an utter failure. Drug use is still going strong – as are overdose deaths – despite the government’s best efforts.
The idea of ending violent regulation of narcotics is about as foreign a concept as a smartphone to Napoleon Bonaparte. The thought of ending these policies is a terrifying prospect for most people.
When I asked my X followers about their concerns about ending the War on Drugs, one of my followers responded, “People dying is a concern, at least for me it is.”
It’s understandable.
Many people know someone who lost their life to drug addiction. The common wisdom dictates that legalizing or decriminalizing narcotics would lead to more drug use. More drug use would lead to more addiction. More addiction would lead to more deaths.
But what if the prevailing wisdom is a lie? It is certainly a possibility worth exploring, so let’s do it.
Overdose Deaths and the War on Drugs
If you are concerned about the rate of overdose deaths, you might be disturbed to find out that despite passing sweeping legislation at all levels of government, using militarized law enforcement, and launching persuasion campaigns, more people die from overdoses today than before drug prohibition.
On average, there were about 3,576 overdose deaths per year in the 1980s, during the height of the crack epidemic. These numbers are disturbing enough, right? But today, the rate of overdose deaths has grown far worse.
In 2020, there were 93,655 overdose deaths in the United States. With the widespread dissemination of deadly fentanyl coming over the southern border, it might be tempting to attribute these deaths to the opioid. But a closer look at the numbers shows that even among overdose deaths that are not related to fentanyl, there are still far more fatalities due to other types of drugs as well.
About 60% of the overdose deaths in 2020 were due to fentanyl. This means that the other 40%, which breaks down to 37,462 individuals, died from other narcotics. This is about ten times as many as the amount of people who died from drugs in the 1980s.
Additionally, the overdose death rate in the 1980s (1.5 per 100,000) was dramatically lower than in 2024 (25.6 per 100,000), an increase of about 18.8 times. This means the rate of overdose deaths that occur today is 17 times higher than what it was during the crack epidemic in the 1980s.
Less Dangerous Drugs
Another byproduct of the War on Drugs is how it has affected the nature of the narcotics people consume. When people are forced to resort to the black market to get their fix, it means they are not fully aware of what they are putting into their bodies.
Because of prohibition, manufacturers of street drugs make the strongest, most addictive product possible. Those buying the drugs need more bang for their buck.
The same holds true of drugs like methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and others. It is one of the reasons fentanyl has become so popular. Drug cartels and their partners have taken to lacing the opioid into regular street drugs to give people a stronger high.
In his book, “Chasing the Scream,” author Johann Hari tells the story of British doctor John Marks, who ran a drug abuse clinic in the United Kingdom. When Margaret Thatcher’s administration ordered each locality in the nation to demonstrate that it had a strategy to combat drugs, he began looking into the issue of addiction and health.
Marks found that none of those receiving prescriptions for heroin “had the usual problems found among addicts: overdoses, abscesses, disease. They mostly had regular jobs and normal lives.”
There is a reason for this.
“All doctors agree that medically pure heroin, injected using clean needles, does not produce these problems. Under prohibition, criminals cut their drugs with whatever similar-looking powders they can find, so they can sell more batches and make more cash,” Hari pointed out.
Marks and his colleague could see the difference between those who used street heroin and those who used prescription heroin. “The street addicts would often stagger in with abscesses that looked like hard-boiled eggs rotting under their skin, and with open wounds on their hands and legs that looked, as Parry recalls, ‘like a pizza of infection. It’s mushy, and the cheese you get on it is pus. And it just gets bigger and bigger,’” Hari explained.
Yet, those on prescriptions “looked like the nurses, or the receptionists, or John himself” Hari noted. “You couldn’t tell them apart.”
In general, addicts aren’t dying merely because they are using heroin or other drugs. They are dying because of the other chemicals and substances that have been laced into these narcotics.
What’s the Solution?
Portugal, which has decriminalized drugs since 2001, experiences around eight deaths per million people. In contrast, the United States has roughly 264 deaths per million. It is clear that Portugal is doing something right – and America is doing something horribly wrong.
I’m not saying heroin and meth use is healthy. Like any drug, including alcohol or tobacco, it can be quite harmful if one abuses it. But of those who use these substances, about 90 percent do not become addicted and most of those who do become addicted still live normal lives.
Nobody wants to see people dying from overdoses. It is one of the most tragic things that can happen to a family. Addiction is a serious issue. This means we need serious solutions.
Fears over more deaths due to ending prohibition are unfounded. The truth is that we have been lied to for years, and it’s time for a change. If we end the War on Drugs, it will not only promote liberty, it will save countless lives.