What Is the Drug Issue? an Overview

The social importance of drugs does not lie in their capacity to injure and reduce the capabilities of drug users, though when misused drugs can inflict psychological and physical harm. These casualties are a small minority, and in most cases they could be treated if a less punitive legal policy were operating. Indeed, the worst effects of drugs, such as the crimes committed by addicts and their deaths from overdoses, are a direct result of the law. Certainly casualties occur often enough among drug users to warrant some form of control: Individuals are hurt by the drugs themselves and by the law, or they suffer from a damaged sense of usefulness. But the loss to society of such members may be of less importance than the loss of the quality of wholeness that comes from broad agreement on critical issues.