It wasn’t that long ago that prostitutes became “sex workers,” so it was inevitable that drug dealers and smugglers would become “drug workers.”

The inevitable has arrived.

This kind of violent rhetoric against drug workers is abhorrent.

Most fentanyl sellers are people who use it as well, and they are trying to survive under the same destructive, racist system that replaced opium with morphine, then heroin, then fentanyl: the War on Drugs pic.twitter.com/NJ3rOe0v5S

— Hilary Agro 🍄 (@hilaryagro) April 10, 2023

Whatever you think about the wisdom of the war on drugs–and I have very mixed feelings about it–the people who routinely engage in dealing illegal drugs are not driven to do so by racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other victimizing force.

They do it for greed. And the result is hundreds of thousands of deaths from overdoses, and countless more from other related causes.

Here in Minneapolis, our light rail line is basically a mobile drug use and sales bazaar. Consequently, light rail stations are where you can find an overdose death or two a day. It adds a nice flavor to city life.

If drug overdoses were caused by some underlying social ill then explain how in 20 years the rate of such deaths could increase by more than 500%. That isn’t capitalism becoming more oppressive. It’s fentanyl.

We can argue all you want about the appropriate policies to deal with the problem that we have and whether some form of legalization and regulation could be a better strategy for reducing the harm from drugs, but dealers are not victimized “drug workers.”

They are merchants of death. For all the claims about “gun violence,” much of which is actually related to drug violence, it pales in comparison to the deaths from drug overdoses. Drug dealers are murderers directly and/or indirectly. They push the foul substances that are killing people by the job lot.

But no, we are told. It is society’s fault. Capitalism did it. The dealers are victims.

Poppycock.

I would happily hang 5 or 50 drug dealers if it would save hundreds or thousands of lives, without a second thought. In what moral universe would this not be a fair trade? Barring moral objections to the death penalty itself–a position I don’t share but do respect–by what moral calculus would this not be a right and good thing to do?

As a practical matter, such trades are not ours to make. The killing of one or 5 or 10 drug dealers would not, practically, ensure that hundreds would live. There are more than enough drug dealers in the pipeline. That is why I would not jump on the trade, because it is no trade at all. But in principle, this would be an easy call.

But the Left only finds moral culpability in conservatives, who are the root of all evil. Capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, or whatever ill they wish to blame everything on are the only cause of any evil. The evilest murdering thug is a victim should they be in the right “victim” group, and the most blameless person is evil should they fall into the hated class, especially if they are a heterosexual White man.

So we get to this point: murderous drug dealers are “drug workers,” just getting by making a living while being oppressed by The Man.