"All Drugs are Evil!"

I’m a huge fan of British detective shows. Recently I was watching an episode of “Inspector Morse” in which the entire plot revolved around drugs and teen suicide. 

The drug in question for this show was fictional and clearly intended to be similar to Ecstasy. A young girl, high on the drug, decides she has lived the most perfect evening of her life, has nothing left to look forward to, and kills herself. This girl is the daughter of one of Morse’s close friends and Morse takes it hard.

The investigation leads them to discover rave culture, fractals, “house” music and all kinds of strange and unsettling things. At one point in the story the “Drugs Squad” person is trying to assure Morse that “these are quite nice drugs, not like heroine or crack.”

Morse responds: “Nothing evil? All drugs are evil!” John Thaw is a wonderful actor. He says the line with resounding Shakespearian authority. He’s the kind of actor who can deliver a line like that and make it reverberate through your brain.

Now keep in mind that Chief Inspector Morse and his sidekick, Detective Inspector Lewis, visit a pub at least once per episode. Morse claims he needs beer to help him think. Neither Inspector Morse nor the actor who played him ever saw a dram of alcohol they didn’t like. In 2002, John Thaw died of esophageal cancer caused by a life of chain smoking and hard drinking.

All drugs are evil.

Really?

All drugs? Or just the ones that are illegal or culturally unusual? Would alcohol be evil if they passed a law banning it? Do you think either Morse or Thaw would have stopped drinking if they had?

No, of course, not. Every person is entitled to freely and legally drink themselves to death if they so choose.

It is said that one man’s drink is another man’s poison. In the case of John Thaw, the drink and the poison were the same thing.

Is alcohol evil?

No.

Are all (illegal or culturally unusual) drugs evil?

Of course, not.

Drugs do cause great harm, but only humans can be evil because we can make moral choices. We can poison someone and that would be evil. We can choose to poison ourselves and that may be evil.

And the war on drugs is evil because of all the tremendous devastation it causes. The war on drugs destroys more lives than the drugs themselves ever could. Drugs can’t be evil, but people can and sometimes are. With the drug war our society is being unknowingly and thoughtlessly evil. This evil is not caused by the drugs but by custom, by politics and by unrealistic, unscientific cultural assumptions.

The young girl who kicks off the story may have killed herself because she had a wonderful time as a result of an ecstasy-like drug. But do you know what she used to poison herself?

Aspirin.