You are a victim. ‘Victimless’ is of course a relative descriptor. A ‘victimless crime’ is generally a crime without violations of civil liability. Drug use is still widely considered non-victimless, on the grounds that drug use generates wide untamely chaos and cruelty. And so we banned it. When I say drug use is a victimless crime, I mean to reasses that view. To me, it’s an unfocused assessment of the issue and a reactionary solution to boot.

Losing friends to drug overdoses is terrible and not to be devalued. I’ve lost 2 close friends to drug overdoses: one heroine and another prescription painkillers, both while I was off at college. I really understand.

If we map an event chain to the tragedy, things get existential fast. We have to ask why they used the drugs. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe depression, self-esteem. My cousin is addicted to painkillers prescribed to him for a back injury from his best friend hitting him with a jet ski. My point is just that things are usually very complicated. Naturally, we want someone to blame, but let’s be cautious, lest we create new problems.

Concluding we are victims of the substance makes sense in numerous ways, but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and has failed outright as a solution to the problem (see war on drugs) and I think we can do better.

If we intend to prevent it from happening again to you and others, we want to look at the causes with an open mind.