It may not be crazy or malevolent, but it is egregiously negligent. There's a real wisdom behind the quote "with great power, comes great responsibility". Whil

It may not be crazy or malevolent, but it is egregiously negligent. There's a real wisdom behind the quote "with great power, comes great responsibility". While I don't agree, I think it's perfectly possible for a reasonable, well-intentioned person to believe in drug prohibition. But actually following through with that policy inevitably means destroying the lives of millions of people. That may be defensible on utilitarian grounds. But if you're going to pull the Trolley Car level, you better make damn sure that you're not actually switching to a track running over more people, How many of the current policymakers, politicians or prosecutors who continue to wage the drug war have bothered to do a rigorous evaluation of the evidence for themselves? How many have performed an in-depth examination of Portugal's experiment with decriminalization? How many could show you their utilitarian calculus, giving precise figures between people incarcerated and overdoses prevented? Heck, how many politicians lack an even basic understanding of the physiological effects of the chemicals they're imprisoning people for? 99 out of 100 drug warriors show a total lack of respect for the responsibility of the power that they're asking us to give them. If you're going to ruin the lives of millions of people, and infringe on fundamental personal civil liberties, then the standard needs to be higher than "I've got a good feeling that this is the right thing to do".