Title : The phenomenologization of prohibitionism: Technique and positivity
Abstract:
We know that Prohibitionism, despite repeatedly failing to achieve its objectives of eradicating drug production and consumption, remains completely dominant in the world. Its permanence and sustenance as a public policy, in spite of its failure, is generally understood as offering the State the power to control certain undesired social groups. However, when we analyze Prohibitionism through the lens of late Heidegger's thought (Age of Technology), a new comprehensive possibility emerges. Prohibitionism comes to be understood as an expression of the epochal sense of our world, completely attuned to the enframing of the Age of Technology. We argue that technology ontologically sustains Prohibitionism. As an unfolding of Technology and ratifying our position, we turn to the author Byung-Chul Han for the ontic notion of positivity. We thus arrive at the proposition that Prohibitionism is positivity. Finally, we warn that if we truly want a new drug policy, we should not only fight against Prohibitionism, but fundamentally, our efforts should project towards a resistance to the world of technology, a disobedience to calculative thinking. Ultimately, the meaning of existence, with or without drug use, should move closer to inhabiting the world in a more poetic manner.
