I recently found myself conversing with a family member on the topic of illicit drug use. And since this interaction was of some interest, I thought it appropriate to write about it here in this forum. The crux of the issue was that they were concerned about the prevalence of harmful illegal drugs. Living in the country Canada, they thought the penalty for trafficking and using drugs was far too lenient, and that this ensures the continued prevalence of contraband. They proposed that harsher punishment would discourage these villains from their villainy. I greatly disagreed with this notion and told them such. I thought that we ought to learn from the mistakes of the past and realize that we must not be so quick to employ such drastic punishments. After all, it is unclear if such measures deter crime in the slightest. It would be a great shame if the only thing we did for victims of drug epidemics was to hang them. It is as is said on page 33 in the Discourse on Inequality, “great evils are often introduced in order to correct the lesser ones”. We must be conscious of the various effects that our laws much have.