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Why John Stuart Mill is irrelevant to the drug debate

an open letter to misguided utilitarians

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

September 7, 2025



In researching drug-related articles in academia, I am always bothered by those pundits who attempt to establish our right to drugs using the philosophy of John Stuart Mill. By formulating the problem on Mill's utilitarian 1 2 grounds, they lose track of the fact that drug use is not simply recreational, but it is also medicinal and spiritual and philosophical in nature as well. And so the question is not simply, does a hedonist have a right to "get high," as the philosophers who pursue this angle would frame the debate, but rather, do we have a right to health care itself? Do we have a right to the best medicinal options for what ails us, psychologically speaking? Do we have a right to self-agency itself. The answer is clearly yes in a democratic world. Everyone has a right to take care of their own health as they see fit. Such rights are antecedent to all other rights. Even if we conclude that the hedonists have no "right" to get high on a given drug, it does not follow that we should outlaw their doing so insofar as criminalizing a drug for juvenile delinquents also keeps it out of the hands of those who truly could benefit from its use. As Thomas Szasz says, "The laws that deny healthy people 'recreational' drugs also deny sick people 'therapeutic' drugs."

Even if we cannot imagine a beneficial use of a given psychoactive drug as we speak, that says more about our personal lack of imagination than it does about the utility of a given substance. All drugs that inspire and elate have potential uses as antidepressants 3. This is psychological common sense. It is, moreover, anti-scientific to declare in advance that a drug has no potential benefits -- and that is what we do when we outlaw psychoactive medicine to punish perceived hedonists. We outlaw all research for benefits that the world could someday glean from a drug, either used by itself and/or in combination with other drugs. This is wrong, to outlaw such medicines, whether or not we believe that hedonists are using them in a way that harms others.

The Mill-oriented utilitarian gets on his philosophical high horse to determine if a hedonist has a right to "get high," and evokes hair-splitting arguments about the dangers that he or she may or may not pose to others in doing so. But this is a sideshow. It keeps our mind off the real issue. The hedonist is but one stakeholder among many in the drug legalization 4 debate. Indeed, the whole idea of drug prohibition is based on the bizarre idea that the hedonist is the only stakeholder -- that they just want to get high -- and so we can potentially deny them that right based on the harm that they might pose to themselves and others. But when we outlaw drugs with the hedonists in mind, we are thereby denying healthcare (both actual and potential) to far more than hedonists.

We are denying the right to godsend healthcare to millions of others, as, for instance, the wise use of laughing gas 5 , coca, opium and/or MDMA 6 could prevent the suicide 7 of the severely depressed and render brain-damaging shock therapy unnecessary. cocaine 8 9 sharpens the mind. It is a sin that we are not using the drug to help Alzheimer's 10 patients to think straight. These are stakeholders, too, that we never recognize in the drug debate, least of all when we get off on a tangent by asking if drug use comports with the harm-based analysis of John Stuart Mill. When we outlaw drugs with hedonists in mind, we are also outlawing potential religious inspiration, insofar as drugs like Soma inspired the Vedic religion. We are also denying potential philosophical progress, insofar as William James himself told us to investigate chemically altered states in order to learn about human perception, the mind-body problem and the nature of ultimate reality.

To summarize then:

It is a mistake to invoke John Stuart Mill in the drug debate. It is a mistake to ask the question, "Do I have a right to use drugs recreationally?" The real issue is, do we have a right to use drugs for medical, religious, and philosophical benefit? Do I have a right to take care of my own health, to practice my own religion, to study ultimate reality? The answer to these questions is a resounding yes in a free society. If recreational users misuse the drugs in question, that is another issue altogether and cannot be used as an excuse to deny us healthcare and religious liberty and human progress itself.

Another problem with the Mill approach is that it ignores the obvious: the fact that there is something childish and prima facie wrong with criminalizing Mother Nature, especially in a country based on the idea of natural law. John Locke himself wrote that we have a right to the use of the land and all that lies therein. To quote Szasz again:

"The right to chew or smoke a plant that grows wild in nature, such as hemp (marijuana), is anterior to and more basic than the right to vote." --Thomas Szasz, Our Right to Drugs --p xvi11


Finally, drug prohibition is based on an imperialist and anti-scientific algorithm. It tells us that a drug that can be misused, even in theory, by a white American young person when used at one dose for one reason, must not be used by anybody at any dose for any reason. This algorithm is worse even than it sounds, for our Drug Warriors refuse "on principle" to educate these young people about safe drug use. And yet they do not hesitate to blame "drugs" for the many problems that result from their refusal to educate, not to mention their refusal to regulate the drug supply and to provide real choices so that users do not end up obsessing on one drug and so develop unwanted dependencies. There was no opiate crisis in the States when opium 12 was legal and users could smoke the regulated product in the privacy of their own homes. Young people are dying on the streets thanks to drug prohibition: its failure to educate, failure to regulate, and failure to provide drug choice.

To repeat: The philosophy of John Stuart Mill is irrelevant in the drug debate. It is wrong to decide our right to drugs based on potential harm to others. When we do so, we play the Drug Warrior's game by ignoring all the stakeholders in the debate except the supposedly "vulnerable" young people whom we refuse to educate about safe use. In reality, the stakeholders in this matter include those seeking mental and emotional health, those seeking religious insight, and those seeking philosophical truths. If we wish to talk about harm, let us talk about the harm that citizens undergo when they are unable to take care of their own mind and mood, when they are unable to seek religious insight, when they are unable to investigate philosophical truths. Care for specifics? Let's talk about the unnecessary suicides, the school shootings and the shock therapy -- all because we outlaw substances that inspire, elate and promote compassion. Let's talk about the REAL harm of drug prohibition, including the thousands of deaths each year in America's inner cities thanks to gun violence 13 that our drug policy created out of whole cloth. Let's talk about the end of democracy in America as we use drug laws to throw minorities in jail and remove them from the voting rolls, thus ensuring the endless re-election of Drug War demagogues.

By invoking Mill in the drug debate, philosophers yield enormous ground to the Drug Warrior. This is because the argument over potential harm always starts from the following two demonstrably false assumptions: first, that there are no upsides to drug use, and second, that there are no downsides to drug prohibition.









Notes for essay entitled Why John Stuart Mill is irrelevant to the drug debate: an open letter to misguided utilitarians:

1: We have an absolute right to use drugs DWP (up)
2: Drug Prohibition should be protested on principle, not on utilitarian grounds DWP (up)
3: Antidepressants and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
4: “National Coalition for Drug Legalization.” n.d. National Coalition for Drug Legalization. https://www.nationalcoalitionfordruglegalization.org/. (up)
5: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
6: How the Drug War killed Leah Betts DWP (up)
7: Why Americans Prefer Suicide to Drug Use DWP (up)
8: Sigmund Freud's real breakthrough was not psychoanalysis DWP (up)
9: “Freud on Cocaine : Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/freudoncocaine0000freu/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater. (up)
10: What the Honey Trick Tells us about Drug Prohibition DWP (up)
11: Szasz, Thomas. 1992. Our Right to Drugs. Praeger. (up)
12: The Truth About Opium by William H. Brereton DWP (up)
13: Firearm Violence in the United States Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Johns Hopkins University (up)




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