Legal briefs

Separation of powers

There is a pitched battle over presidential powers playing out in the federal court system. Though covering many fronts, the most significant area involves immigration. The Trump administration has employed every tool at its disposal to deport illegal immigrants. Almost every administration action is being challenged, primarily by the ACLU. All of this is squarely in the wheelhouse of Judex, and I am following it closely. However, it is moving so fast I can’t keep up, and it is so complicated it takes more than a legal brief segment to explain. I hope to publish something comprehensive when the dust settles a bit. Until then, you can read a whole bunch about crime.

Crime

The campaign against cigarette use in the United States has been very successful. The fight against smoking took a multi-faceted approach. Advertising campaigns showed the link to cancer, tobacco companies were banned from advertising on television, states and plaintiffs’ lawyers aggressively pursued litigation against tobacco companies, and efforts were made to increase the cultural disapproval and stigma of smoking. It worked. In 1965, 42% of adults in the U.S. smoked. By 2021, that number was down to 11%.

Observing this, Substacker, Rob Henderson, recently posted this bit of sarcasm:

If the anti-tobacco movement had handed out free “safer” cigarettes, destigmatized smoking and created more spaces to light up without stigma or judgment, they would have successfully reduced smoking. Sadly, they instead went with using stigma + judgment and look what happened.

He is, of course, referencing the misguided harm reduction approach to drug use that has been embraced over the last several years. Unlike the stigma approach taken by the anti-tobacco movement, the harm reduction movement has led to more drug use and overdose death. We should accept the lessons of past successes.

More crime

Here is an example of today’s lenient drug policies at work. A recently published study found that legalization of marijuana led to an increase in use among minors. The study surveyed over one hundred thousand Canadian students between grades 7 to 11, following the 2018 legalization of marijuana in the country. They found a 26% increase in youth reporting the use of marijuana over the past 12 months. The study indicated a 43% increase in young people consuming marijuana edibles, and a 34% increase in use by smoking. There was also a reported 28% increase in young people reporting the mixed use of alcohol and marijuana. Unsurprisingly, this increased use coincided with young people reporting a lower perception of harm associated with marijuana use. I harbor many arguments against legalizing marijuana, but the one most compelling to me is made clear by this study: if you make marijuana legal, more young people will use it.

Still more crime

Now the counterexample. During the Vietnam war, heroin use was prominent among U.S. soldiers. A famous study following the war found that roughly a third of Vietnam vets became addicted to heroin while deployed. However, heroin use among Vietnam vets plummeted once they returned to the U.S., with only 1% becoming re-addicted. The study further found that the vets who stopped using heroin just quit cold turkey.

The researchers attempted to determine why and how the soldiers quit the way they did. They found that access to heroin was not an impediment. Most of the vets reported that they had easy access to heroin at home. The main reasons they gave for not using stateside were fear of becoming addicted again, experiencing adverse health effects, fear of being arrested, and disapproval of friends and family. In addition, the returning vets believed that heroin was dangerous and opposed legalizing the drug or reducing criminal penalties.

The findings of the study stand in stark contrast to the messaging around drug use prevailing today. Where Vietnam vets found the disapproval of friends and family to be a deterrent, today we promote efforts to “remove the stigma.” The vets were dissuaded from use by fear of being arrested, and we have lowered penalties and even legalized heroin in some areas. We constantly hear about how challenging it is to beat addiction leading to the growth of a compassion-industrial complex purportedly necessary to get people clean. The Vietnam vets simply stopped using the drug.

The comparison may not be one to one. There may be intervening factors that make things different today. However, I suggest we have a lot to learn from the soldiers who returned from Vietnam.

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