Without welfare, I wouldn’t be here. - Carl Hart

Clearly, many people consume psychoactive substances “in the pursuit of happiness,” a right the government was established to secure, to protect. So why then is our current government arresting one million Americans each year for possessing drugs? Why are so many drug users hiding in the closet? This reality does not align with the spirit of the Declaration

I wrote a piece in The New York Times in August where I pointed out that this isn’t new. Even with crack, there were white—more white users, and those white users got treatment, whereas the brothers and sisters, black brothers and sisters, went to jail. The same sort of thing is happening in this case. Eighty percent of the people who are being currently arrested for the opioids are black and Latino, even though they don’t use those drugs at rates higher than their white brothers and sisters. And so, this is just the American pattern of dealing with drugs. It’s not new. And we continue the same thing. So I’m asking people: let’s not get crazy; let’s just focus on the real problems.

Here's the bottom line: over my more than twenty-five-year career, I have discovered that most drug-use scenarios cause little or no harm and that some responsible drug-use scenarios are actually beneficial for human health and functioning. Even "recreational" drugs can and do improve day-to-day living.