Drugs, Harm Reduction, and

Restorative Justice
Tim Hopkins | August 3rd, 2019

In Brantford, Ontario, the police recently escalated their drug sweeps, ostensibly
in response to a record number of overdoses in the community from drugs
laced with fentanyl. Mayor Kevin Davis, who is on record as supporting a
proposal for a supervised injection site, showed his cognitive disconnect by also
speaking glowingly of the raids. But anarchists understand all too well the iron
law of prohibition; the more intense the enforcement, the dirtier the drugs get.

Drug prohibition is one of the greatest threats to liberty in modern times. A

central theme of libertarian thought is the belief in personal, bodily autonomy
and drug law enforcement is a brutal violation of our most intimate and personal
freedoms. Traditionally, the war on drugs is thought to refer merely to the
manufacture, distribution, and consumption of illicit (“recreational”) drugs. But
drug prohibition in the general sense includes prescription laws, pharmaceutical
regulation, and the resulting licensing cartels. In the broadest sense, drug
prohibition encompasses any state-enforced barrier to voluntarily arranged
access to drugs, all inconsistent with the right to personal sovereignty.

As we’ve seen with the quasi-legalization of cannabis, even mainstream

attitudes about prohibition are becoming increasingly liberalized as the collateral
damage begins to reach the white middle class. Drug warriors cut their losses
and all over North America the status of pot is changing from illegal to “illegal
with exceptions,” first for government decreed “medicinal use” to recreational.
Most have attempted to restrict it to a state franchise, but the black market
continues to grow and thrive. The loosening of restrictions on weed was
damage control. So are “harm reduction” initiatives. These programs, which
include addiction treatment, free access to Narcan and Naloxone to reverse
overdoses and poisonings, needle exchanges and disposal bins, as well as
medically supervised injection sites (“safe consumption sites”), have been
conventionally justified on the grounds of public health and a shift in priorities
from jailing drug users to treating addiction as a health issue. The conservative
backlash, predictably, consists of accusing harm reduction advocates of
“coddling addicts” and enabling self-destructive behavioral patterns. I suggest
that, as anarchists, we support such initiatives even if they are state-financed
and administered, not primarily on public health grounds or compassion, but as
a simple act of restorative justice.

What I propose is pretty straight forward. Market anarchists should support

these “harm reduction” programs. Although the benefits are clear, should
anarchists support what appears to be a net increase in statism and, as T. J.
Scholl argues in “Drugs Users Do Not Require State Supervision,” a more
subtle intrusion on personal freedom?

I base this on the libertarian principle of restitution. The users of illicit drugs
have the right to defend their property and person from the unjust use of force
by the state as it enforces drug laws. In most cases, such direct self-defense is
futile and imprudent. But the principles of justice also require that a perpetrator
fully restore his victim and make her whole to whatever extent possible. How
can the state do this in the midst of an ongoing injustice? And how can such
reparations be made in a way that doesn’t further victimize taxpayers?

In Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick offered anarchists his ultraminimal
state as restitution for coercively imposing a monopoly on the legitimate use of
force. In contrast, what I have in mind doesn’t require the continued existence of
the state, we’d all be better off if, in the right ideological climate, it collapsed
tomorrow. But right now, the chances of such a thing happening are both fat
and slim. Meanwhile, harm reduction programs (HRP) function as a kind of
secondary regulation of the drug war, an effort to alleviate some of its worst
effects, such as overdoses, poisonings, the dangers posed by discarded drug
paraphernalia, and addiction to name a few. Moreover, to the extent that access
to these programs is voluntary, they get used only if the drug consumer values
them. Take supervised injection sites (SIS), for instance. The primary value of
such sites is not that users can consume drugs free of health risks (they do
lower such risks for obvious reasons), but that an SIS essentially provides
immunity and sanctuary (very limited and conditional) from drug law
enforcement efforts. The state aims to reinforce the drug war by introducing ad
hoc measures to clean up or contain the devastation it causes, but why should
we not support this insofar as it actually weakens the case for prohibition and
minimally eases the suffering of its victims?

Anarchists can anticipate the ambivalence of the general public towards the use
of tax funds to finance and administer HRPs. They point to the need for drug
users to assume responsibility for their own lives and decisions while conceding
the drug war is wrong. But if one is morally opposed to drug prohibition while
fully aware that it’s an ongoing injustice with no end in sight, I cannot imagine
why anyone would oppose compensation in a form that would be subjectively
valued by its greatest victims. Indeed, I think anyone who would actively oppose
HRPs in principle should be considered an accessory in this injustice.

If the day ever comes when drug prohibition collapses under the weight of its
own hubris and stupidity, the consumers of illicit drugs and society will be
square with the house. Until or unless that day comes, harm reduction initiatives
are not a matter of paternalism, enabling, or coddling, but a matter of justice.