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Yes, there are examples in recent memory that show this approach has merit.

Portugal adopted a policy of drug decriminalization in 2001. That policy shift was followed by a dramatic drop in Portugal’s overdose deaths, which are now five times lower than the European average. New HIV diagnoses dropped by over 90 percent among drug users most at risk of infection—those who use injectable drugs. More people entered treatment. Despite the reduced criminal penalties, drug use does not seem to have significantly increased among young people in Portugal since that time.

Switzerland implemented a health-focused drug policy in the 1980s and 1990s, involving public education campaigns, therapy and treatment, and harm reduction strategies like clean needle exchanges and even medically supervised use for the addicts who were deepest in addiction. These policies resulted in a massive reduction in Swiss crime, as fewer addicts were stealing to support their addictions. Homelessness fell, employment increased, overdoses fell, and HIV rates dropped. There was not a discernible increase in new users, and the addict population seems to be getting older, suggesting that fewer young people are becoming newly addicted.

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Full Question in the book: “Perhaps these policy ideas make sense to a libertarian, but why should a Christian accept them? Are you saying you want to treat the health matter of drug abuse separate from the legal matter of drug abuse?”

More than the secular libertarian, libertarian Christians should be able to recognize that drug abuse and addiction are symptoms of a spiritual problem, not merely a physical health problem or a criminal matter for courts to sort out. Anyone who serves a master other than Jesus is guilty of idolatry, and drug addiction can be one of the more visible forms of that ancient sin. As believers, we recognize that all have sinned, and that all need to repent and believe in Jesus.

Rather than holding disdain in our hearts for drug addicts, as Christians we should have compassion for them and a desire to help them escape the consequences of sin through the gift of salvation. As Christians, each of us has come to the realization that we are not enough in ourselves, but that we can be more than enough in Jesus. That hope—a hope that is absurd and impossible according to the world’s wisdom—should give us a boldness in reaching out to other sinners who have yet to repent of their sins and seek the only lasting escape from them through our Lord and Savior. This compassion is in keeping with the great commandments of Jesus and honors him.

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No one can guarantee that any solution to addiction will totally eliminate it from society. However, we can minimize the extent to which well-meaning government policies incentivize and enable this sort of destructive behavior. We live in a fallen world, and sin is a part of that world. Those of us who are strong are called to bear with the weak and build them up despite their infirmities, and to seek their good pleasure rather than our own (Rom 15:1–3, Phil 2:3–4).

In such an environment, rather than relying on government sanctions to make temptation impossible—a strategy which does not seem to be working anyway—we would instead be called to demonstrate self control, not merely for our own sake but to help the weaker brother not to stumble (1 Cor 8). Taking personal responsibility and choosing to take care of the needs of others seems harder than relying on external restraints, but by following Jesus’ example, we can aid the weak and serve them far more effectively than government ever will (Gal 5:13, 1 Thess 5:14).

Libertarians believe in personal responsibility, and personal responsibility is the best remedy for destructive personal vices. Under modern states, policymakers attempt to address social problems relating to addiction in a number of ways that they characterize as “harm reduction.” These programs may include problem-solving courts, needle exchanges, controlled distribution of allegedly safer drugs like methadone, and taxpayer-funded support of drug rehabilitation programming. Libertarians reject the compulsory socialization of the costs of drug abuse.

Instead, many libertarians would argue that being left to face the consequences of poor personal decisions would be a better alternative. Other libertarians favor solutions that appear to be similar to those listed above, but which are paid for through voluntary charity or family funds. Rather than threatening criminal punishment while granting taxpayer-financed welfare benefits, recourse to private charity replaces legal entitlement with voluntary assistance, something that the evidence shows results in stronger community and peer support, lower overall costs, and an element of spiritual growth instead of a purely secular public health approach.

Other symptoms of drug abuse may include homelessness and petty crimes that would cease to be a significant problem under a private property regime as proposed by libertarians. Government managed “public property” often becomes a haven for drug addicts, enabling self-destructive behaviors by providing a location for incorrigible abusers to congregate and live out their addictions. Private property owners can remove such people from their grounds, while governments are often unable or unwilling to dissipate homeless camps that are set up on public property.

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It is hard to say whether drug legalization would lead to elevated drug use. It might. Legalization might even lead to more drug abuse. But when it comes to overdoses, it seems to be the case that most drug overdoses occur because of a dangerous combination of variable potency of black market drugs and the unwise choices of multi-drug users. Most drug users take drugs to feel good, not to die. According to data reported by the United States National Center for Health Statistics, most of the approximately 100,000 fatal overdoses per year, roughly 85–95 percent, are unintentional (NCHS Data Brief, Number 457. Dec. 2022).

A major cause of these unintentional overdoses is the great variability in the potency of black market drugs. Opioid drugs are the leading drugs found to be responsible for fatal drug overdoses. The original recreational opiate—opium—was introduced to the American market as a drug that could be smoked or eaten, and while addiction was common, fatal overdoses were rare. Smoked opium would usually render the user insensate far before he could consume enough to overdose. Opium-smoking was associated in the popular press with Chinese immigrants, and in 1875 one of the first local laws banning opium dens was passed in San Francisco. Seven years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed in the U. S. Congress, driven in large part by a stereotypical association of Chinese immigrants with opium.

With the rise of legal and social stigma, some fatal overdoses began to occur as liquid opiate preparations became more common, including laudanum and various patent medicines. While opium was stigmatized and made harder to legally acquire, opioid users started injecting morphine, thanks to the recent invention of the hypodermic needle. Barely two decades after the first anti-opium laws, the Bayer Company began marketing diacetylmorphine (heroin) as a “non-addictive” alternative to morphine. In the early twentieth century, federal law continued to focus on prohibition of the safer, but more “foreign” smoked version of opium, while only requiring accurate labeling of injectable or oral opioids. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Acts of 1914 then outlawed legal opioids for most addicts and sent them to the black market to feed their addictions.

A succession of synthesized opioids were subsequently developed, and while many users started addictions with legal pharmaceutical drugs, they maintained their addiction through the purchase of illicit pills, including counterfeit drugs, that were available on the street. Progressing from codeine to oxycodone to fentanyl, the therapeutic dose became tinier and so too did the lethal dose. Overdoses are now commonly attributed to pills that are designed to appear like legitimate pharmaceuticals while actually containing fentanyl. Even though fentanyl is more dangerous, drug smugglers are incentivized to traffic in it instead of safer, less potent opioids, because the risk of smuggling is better rewarded when the contraband is more concentrated and represents more individual doses for sale in the prohibited market. Thus, it is prohibitionist policies that have driven the drug overdose problem.

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Any time there is high demand for a good or service, there is a profit-making opportunity in delivering that good or service. Prohibition creates new types of risks for the prohibited enterprise, and black market entrepreneurs plan accordingly.

In a legal market, competitors may compete for market share, but they typically do not do so through direct violence against each other. They compete based on price, quality, and other factors focusing on appealing to consumers. If an employee or contractor embezzles from the firm, that wrong is addressed in a legal proceeding in the courts.

In a prohibited market, manufacturers, distributors, and vendors all face the constant danger of government violence, confiscation of business and personal assets, and the arrest and imprisonment of their workers. This means that only individuals with a large appetite for risk-taking are likely to participate. It also means that when these individuals have disputes over market share or fulfillment of a contract, there is no legal means available for dispute resolution. This incentivizes violent reprisals instead of peaceful, civilized modes of addressing these conflicts.

Gangs typically develop as a response to a collective defense problem. Rather than fall prey to competing black market actors who want to acquire market share or low-cost inventory quickly through violence, people who are familiar to each other due to previous friendly acquaintance, family connection, or simple physical proximity may band together to provide for their common defense. People who perceive that they are in danger will often do dangerous things. And once accustomed to lawless living, these people are more likely to participate in other forms of unlawful but profitable victimization, like human trafficking, utilizing the smuggling and protection infrastructure that they have already established.

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In the print edition of Faith Seeking Freedom, this question is titled “Why do libertarians oppose prohibition, including the War on Drugs? Are you saying all drugs should be legal?”

There are two primary reasons why libertarians oppose prohibition laws. The first reason is that enforcement of such laws violate people’s property rights. The second is that these laws tend to do more harm than good and fail to address the root problem of substance abuse.

When laws are adopted that impose punishments on people for selling, possessing, or using drugs, the enforcement of these laws requires the use of violence to stop people from doing what they want with their own money and their own bodies. It is inappropriate to use violence to prevent a person from doing something merely because some third party believes that thing is harmful or immoral. Such rules are “simply human commands and teachings” (Col 2:22) and “have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence” (Col 2:23). Instead of this sort of legalism, Christians recognize that we are under a directive to exercise self-control. We are called to wisely abstain from things that, while within the realm of our possible choices, are not edifying, or even worse, may enslave us or cause another to stumble (1 Cor 6:12, 10:23).

Apart from this moral and philosophical analysis, there is also the question of whether prohibition works. It does not. In fact, drug prohibition tends to result in more concentrated, dangerous drugs, greater associated criminality, more overdoses, and less legal accountability for faulty or adulterated products. And the progress of both alcohol prohibition and the drug war have been accompanied by the abuse of civil liberties through expanded use of warrantless seizures, civil asset forfeiture, broader surveillance by police, and infringements on the right to keep and bear arms such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, the passage of which was made possible by rhetoric about prohibition-related gang violence.