Recently, a family member (bless her) said something which implied that I was a Libertarian. I took issue with that implication, not because I have issues with Libertarians per se, but because it bothered me that she would assume that I was one simply because she knew that I was calling for the re-legalization of drugs. This, I feel, is how prohibition survives today after 100-plus years of abject failure, by being compartmentalized in the minds of Americans as a niche issue. Certainly philosophers, by their ongoing silence, believe that it's just one of many issues and can be safely shunted off to Libertarians for any further discussion that the topic may call for. For to quote Mistress Quickly from "The Merry Wives of Windsor": today's philosophers will "ne'er put their fingers in the fire and need not." I believe, rather, that the Drug War is the philosophical problem par excellence of our time and that the ongoing academic silence on this issue represents collaboration in a Drug War ideology that, rightly viewed, will be seen to have already outlawed academic freedom in America.
The following is my email on this topic to said family member.