The Constitution of the War on Drugs
David Pozen, "The Constitution of the War on Drugs "
English | ISBN: 0197685455 | 2024 | 304 pages | EPUB, PDF | 805 KB + 15 MB
English | ISBN: 0197685455 | 2024 | 304 pages | EPUB, PDF | 805 KB + 15 MB
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
An authoritative and first-of-its-kind critical constitutional history of the war on drugs that shows how drug prohibition was shaped by constitutional law, and how constitutional law was shaped by drug prohibition.
The U.S. government's decades-long "war on drugs" is increasingly recognized as a moral travesty as well as a policy failure. The criminalization of substances such as marijuana and magic mushrooms offends core tenets of liberalism, from the right to self-rule to protection of privacy to freedom of religion. It contributes to mass incarceration and racial subordination. And it costs billions of dollars per year–all without advancing public health. Yet, in hundreds upon hundreds of cases, courts have allowed the war to proceed virtually unchecked. How could a set of policies so draconian, destructive, and discriminatory escape constitutional curtailment?
In
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