David Bar Lev - Peter Hitchens and the moral case against drugs

Peter Hitchens and his book The War We Never Fought are analyzed through the concept of moral disgust. This perspective characterizes drug use not merely as a matter of harm reduction but as a fundamental breach of morality that warrants prohibition. Such arguments rely on an ontological claim that intoxication is morally wrong regardless of empirical outcomes. By elevating this moral position, proponents of prohibition frame drug markets as inherently corrupting, which shifts the political discourse away from pragmatic harm reduction and into the realm of ideological and moral conflict.