Let’s Talk Capitalism, Drugs, And The Drug War
Let’s talk about capitalism, drugs, and the drug war.
Capitalism warps our relationship with substances. It creates conditions for misuse — like despair, alienation, and a future devoid of hope — and then criminalizes that very same use. It locks people away, eliminates so-called surplus labor, and profits from their caged bodies.
This alienation — a concept developed by Karl Marx — refers to the feeling of being disconnected from your work, your community, and your own humanity. Capitalism reduces people to mere cogs in a machine. When you feel like a cog, you often seek ways to escape that feeling.