Drugs can exercise a powerful hold over the human person. Witness American actor Robert Downey, Jr.
Obviously Downey, arrested again only three months after being released from prison, has made a mess of his life. But why is the U.S. government threatening to jail him for another five years? He has harmed no one else. He has done nothing to warrant imprisonment.
The so-called drug war has had only indifferent success in reducing drug abuse. Consumption has long varied, irrespective of ongoing enforcement efforts. More than 80 million people, 15 million last year, have tried drugs despite increasingly Draconian penalties.