Heroin didn’t start as a street drug. It started as a miracle medicine, endorsed by doctors, advertised by pharmaceutical companies, and sold over the counter. Then politics, racism, and moral panic lit the fuse on one of the most disastrous policy shifts in modern history: the criminalization of opioids. This is not a story about…
“If we legalize drugs, everyone will get addicted and society will collapse.” That’s the go-to prohibitionist argument, usually delivered with a mix of moral panic and zero citations. It’s been used for over a century to justify criminalizing people, militarizing police, and pouring billions into a “war on drugs” that can’t even win a skirmish…
“If we legalize drugs, society will collapse. Addiction will skyrocket. Crime will explode. Kids will start shooting heroin in homeroom.” That’s the prohibitionist fantasy in a nutshell: the idea that any move toward decriminalization or legalization is a one-way ticket to chaos. It’s been repeated for decades — by politicians, police unions, certain media outlets,…
Heroin didn’t become a “demon drug” because of chemistry. It became a demon because politicians, cops, and moral crusaders needed enemies more than they needed evidence. The chemical stayed the same. The story around it changed — and that story has put millions of people in cages, cemeteries, and lifelong stigma. This is the history…
In a sane world, “harm reduction” would be built into drug policy from day one. We’d regulate purity, provide clear dosing info, and treat people like adults instead of criminals. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a prohibition circus where the state pretends it can “eliminate drugs,” while the illegal market…
“If we legalize drugs, society will collapse. Addiction will skyrocket. Crime will explode.” That’s the stock prohibitionist script. You’ve heard it from politicians, police unions, and every “won’t somebody think of the children?” pundit who’s never opened a public health study in their life. Here’s the problem: almost none of that fearmongering survives contact with…
“If we legalize drugs, addiction will skyrocket, society will collapse, and our streets will be flooded with zombies.” That’s the prohibitionist greatest hit. You’ve heard it from politicians, police unions, pundits, and the same think-tanks that never met a carceral policy they didn’t love. The story is simple and emotionally loaded: drugs are so dangerous…
Prohibition didn’t stop people from using drugs. It just made drugs more dangerous. That’s the core reason harm reduction exists: not because people are “reckless,” but because governments chose criminalization over safety, turning a predictable public health issue into a chaotic, contaminated mess. This article walks through key harm reduction strategies for people who use…
Heroin didn’t start its life as the boogeyman of drug policy. It began as a pharmaceutical golden child — a branded, legal medicine pushed by one of the world’s most powerful corporations. Less than a century later, it became the centerpiece of the modern “war on drugs,” used to justify mass surveillance, mass incarceration, and…
Welcome to the upside-down world of drug policy: governments claim they’re “protecting” people, while their prohibition policies create the very dangers they love to moralize about. If you use drugs, love someone who does, or just care about civil liberties, you deserve straight talk about how to stay safer in a landscape sabotaged by bad…