ABSTRACT
In his chapter, Professor Jerome Skolnick argues that since the late 1980s, American drug policy has been rooted in a particular kind of moral justification for aggressive drug prohibition: the notion that drug use is mala in se, or morally repugnant in and of itself. The mala in se interpretation implies that drug warriors are nonconsequentialist in their reasoning—;;they are morally opposed to drug use irrespective of its costs or benefits. A consequentialist rationale for punitive drug policies implies openness to a sincere desire to base our policies on evidence for their effectiveness in reducing unwanted consequences. Professor Skolnick makes a compelling case that our punitive drug policies frequently fail to rectify and sometimes even exacerbate the harms they are supposedly designed to eliminate. Harm reduction has not been a panacea; these nations still have serious drug problems, though no greater than those in the United States.
