Guide to compassionate governance

This guide explores what compassionate governance looks like in practice—across policy, health, and justice. This section focuses on drug laws, calling for reform grounded in dignity, autonomy, and harm reduction.

There is no reasonable justification for punishing people for acts that have no victims, real or intended. Even if someone risks causing harm to themselves, it is not the role of the state to criminalise such behaviour. Personal autonomy is an important element of a free society. As we have written, “freedom includes the ability to experience life on one’s own terms, potentially including mental states achievable through mind-altering substances. What one does with one’s own body is one’s own business, provided one does not cause harm to others, and the same is true for one’s brain. The state entirely oversteps its role when it punishes people for committing victimless ‘crimes’, even when the behavior is self-destructive. [...] The drug laws in place in most of the world, including in supposedly progressive Western democracies, are generally far broader in scope than what would be needed to protect children, and they are incompatible with basic humanitarian values. That such laws are still so widely maintained is a wrong waiting to be righted” (“Drugs and Other Victimless ‘Crimes’”, The Battle for Compassion). The consequences of criminalising the possession of psychoactive drugs for personal use and consumption are disastrous on multiple levels. In many countries with repressive drug policies, as part of the failed global war on drugs, users are punished and spend often lengthy periods of time suffering in prison. Even those who are not imprisoned may be burdened with a criminal record. Those with dependence issues may avoid seeking medical or social assistance for fear of being treated as criminals. And those with horrendously painful medical conditions like cluster headaches, for which certain psychedelics can provide dramatic relief, may fear prosecution if they are caught acquiring such substances for their personal use.