I used to use hard drugs but I don’t really find it interesting to talk about. What is interesting is the absurdity of the drug war, and the culture around drug use that it creates. I was a functional addict for a long time and it was the eventual poverty and the nature of criminalisation that truly caused the great harms to my life, at least moreso than using as such. In Switzerland addicts are provided with pure heroin from the state. Society has not collapsed and afaik there are less addicts there than in the US. The drug war is a farce causing enormous misery, poverty, violence, ill-health and crime, and I suspect one day we will look back on it with the same abhorrence and confusion that we look back on the criminalisation of homosexuality with. I suspect also that our attitude towards drug use, - the ‘cultural capital’ it has amongst young people, and the self-destructive nature of their use - is also conditioned by their illegality.

I think it’s important for leftists to beware of the kind of moral Puritanism that is common in some circles and which condemns behaviours like drug use and sex work with a special obsessionality. The morality of these kinds of actions in themselves is irrelevant, and arguably non-existent - the conditions they exist in is what determines their nature. Those conditions can be changed, but drug use itself has existed for longer than civilisation has, and is unlikely to disappear. That is true regardless of whether the trade is decriminalised and rehabilitation is a priority, or alternatively whether dealers are lined up and shot. So we regulate in order to control, and we change the conditions and the culture to minimise the harms, rather than being morally prescriptive and idealistic. Communism is not a vehicle to impose one’s own values and fantasies on society, the aim is the dignity and agency of the working class, freedom from exploitation and alienation. Sometimes leftists can forget this.

None of this is to suggest that drug use is good or safe. I don’t use drugs or drink anymore, the only thing is I still haven’t managed to quit smoking - thought I’ll do it when I can