The goal isn’t prevention or increasing economic output, it’s to punish people for breaking social norms. And that goes triple for people of color. It promotes

The goal isn’t prevention or increasing economic output, it’s to punish people for breaking social norms. And that goes triple for people of color. It promotes the power of the powerful, who can always make an exception for their friends while claiming with certitude that all other addicts are morally deficient. So people can make arguments all day long that the War on Drugs is expensive and ineffective and unwinnable, but some people aren’t going to care, because it’s a long-running culture war that empowers the powerful.