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Beyond Control: Drug Prohibition, Gun Regulation, and the Search for Sensible Alternatives
Does gun control work? What about drug restrictions? In this cogent examination of two of America’s most enduring challenges, Reason senior editor Jacob Sullum traces the evolution of gun and drug laws from their dubious beginnings to today’s divisive rhetoric. Through intelligent analysis, compassion, and data-driven conclusions, Sullum discovers a holistic approach that may yield more lasting results than symbolic policies which ignore the underlying causes of hopelessness and despair in America.
The burdens imposed by gun and drug public safety strategies reinforce each other, as gun possession increases penalties for drug offenses and drug offenses disqualify people from legally possessing guns. But decades of research have produced little evidence that popular prescriptions such as assault weapon bans, universal background checks, restrictions on ownership or public possession, and red flag laws work as advertised. When such policies are presented as necessary to protect children, as gun and drug laws often are, resisting them seems insensitive, reckless, or worse. However, these restrictions mostly affect peaceful, law-abiding people, while would-be mass shooters will have little difficulty obtaining the tools of their trade no matter how many gun laws legislators enact. Likewise, there is little evidence that heightened enforcement has a substantial and lasting impact on the price or availability of banned substances. Largely, drug restrictions have been centered around targeted drug classifications and draconian sentencing designed to punish vulnerable groups rather than better society for all. In both cases, policies seem ill-designed to reduce the problems they aim to address and the people who bear the burdens of prohibition are not, by and large, the people who benefit from them.
Substance abuse, gun violence, and suicide are complex problems that are beyond a straightforward function of drugs and guns. They involve personal, social, and economic conditions that make life meaningful and worth living—or not. American Crusades advocates for strategies that focus on harms,highlights how current policies magnify those harms, and provides an approach more carefully tailored to the problems that politicians say they are trying to address.
The burdens imposed by gun and drug public safety strategies reinforce each other, as gun possession increases penalties for drug offenses and drug offenses disqualify people from legally possessing guns. But decades of research have produced little evidence that popular prescriptions such as assault weapon bans, universal background checks, restrictions on ownership or public possession, and red flag laws work as advertised. When such policies are presented as necessary to protect children, as gun and drug laws often are, resisting them seems insensitive, reckless, or worse. However, these restrictions mostly affect peaceful, law-abiding people, while would-be mass shooters will have little difficulty obtaining the tools of their trade no matter how many gun laws legislators enact. Likewise, there is little evidence that heightened enforcement has a substantial and lasting impact on the price or availability of banned substances. Largely, drug restrictions have been centered around targeted drug classifications and draconian sentencing designed to punish vulnerable groups rather than better society for all. In both cases, policies seem ill-designed to reduce the problems they aim to address and the people who bear the burdens of prohibition are not, by and large, the people who benefit from them.
Substance abuse, gun violence, and suicide are complex problems that are beyond a straightforward function of drugs and guns. They involve personal, social, and economic conditions that make life meaningful and worth living—or not. American Crusades advocates for strategies that focus on harms,highlights how current policies magnify those harms, and provides an approach more carefully tailored to the problems that politicians say they are trying to address.
- GenresPolitics
295 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 2, 2025
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June 5, 2025
Book Review: Beyond Control: Drug Prohibition, Gun Regulation, and the Search for Sensible Alternatives by Jacob Sullum - A Public Health Practitioner’s Perspective
Jacob Sullum’s Beyond Control is a provocative critique of America’s twin crusades against drugs and guns, challenging readers to reconsider punitive approaches through a lens of harm reduction and personal autonomy. As a public health practitioner, I found myself both intellectually stimulated and emotionally conflicted by Sullum’s arguments—applauding his indictment of carceral systems while wrestling with the gendered implications of his libertarian framework.
Emotional Resonance: Between Agreement and Unease
Reading this book evoked a tension between professional principles and personal convictions. Sullum’s dismantling of prohibitionist policies resonated deeply—particularly his exposure of how the war on drugs has disproportionately criminalized Black and Brown communities, a reality public health has long fought against. Yet his near-absolutist stance on individual liberty left me unsettled when applied to gun regulation. As someone who works with survivors of intimate partner violence (where firearms escalate lethality risks), I struggled to reconcile his skepticism of gun laws with the lived reality that some forms of control do protect marginalized lives. The book’s libertarian core often felt at odds with feminist collectivism, sparking both admiration for its boldness and frustration at its blind spots.
Key Insights for Public Health
-The Failure of Punitive Systems: Sullum’s analysis of drug prohibition as a public health disaster aligns with feminist critiques of carceral “solutions” to social problems. His evidence that criminalization worsens outcomes (e.g., overdose deaths, mass incarceration) reinforces our field’s push for decriminalization and safe-use programs.
-The Paradox of “Protection”: The book’s exploration of how gun regulations often fail to prevent violence while infringing on rights mirrors feminist debates about paternalistic policies (e.g., mandatory waiting periods for abortion). This tension—between safety and autonomy—demands nuanced discussion.
-Alternatives as Radical Praxis: Sullum’s proposals for market-based and community-led alternatives (e.g., drug legalization, voluntary risk-reduction tools) offer provocative parallels to feminist mutual-aid models, though they risk underestimating structural barriers.
Constructive Criticism
-Gendered Analysis Missing: While Sullum critiques systemic racism, the book largely ignores how drug and gun policies specifically harm women—particularly survivors of violence, pregnant people targeted by punitive drug laws, or trans women of color facing armed policing. A feminist lens would deepen this critique.
-Structural Myopia: The libertarian focus on individual choice overlooks how systemic inequities (poverty, misogyny, racism) constrain “voluntary” alternatives. Public health thrives on balancing autonomy with collective responsibility—a tension needing more acknowledgment.
Final Thoughts
Beyond Control is a vital but flawed contribution to policy debates. Sullum’s sharp critique of prohibitionist dogma is essential reading, even as his framework demands feminist revision. The book left me galvanized to advocate for truly sensible alternatives—ones that center both liberty and the marginalized communities most harmed by false binaries of control vs. chaos.
Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5) – A thought-provoking starting point, not a final word.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the review copy. In a polarized landscape, this book challenges all sides to think beyond dogma—a rare and needed provocation.
Jacob Sullum’s Beyond Control is a provocative critique of America’s twin crusades against drugs and guns, challenging readers to reconsider punitive approaches through a lens of harm reduction and personal autonomy. As a public health practitioner, I found myself both intellectually stimulated and emotionally conflicted by Sullum’s arguments—applauding his indictment of carceral systems while wrestling with the gendered implications of his libertarian framework.
Emotional Resonance: Between Agreement and Unease
Reading this book evoked a tension between professional principles and personal convictions. Sullum’s dismantling of prohibitionist policies resonated deeply—particularly his exposure of how the war on drugs has disproportionately criminalized Black and Brown communities, a reality public health has long fought against. Yet his near-absolutist stance on individual liberty left me unsettled when applied to gun regulation. As someone who works with survivors of intimate partner violence (where firearms escalate lethality risks), I struggled to reconcile his skepticism of gun laws with the lived reality that some forms of control do protect marginalized lives. The book’s libertarian core often felt at odds with feminist collectivism, sparking both admiration for its boldness and frustration at its blind spots.
Key Insights for Public Health
-The Failure of Punitive Systems: Sullum’s analysis of drug prohibition as a public health disaster aligns with feminist critiques of carceral “solutions” to social problems. His evidence that criminalization worsens outcomes (e.g., overdose deaths, mass incarceration) reinforces our field’s push for decriminalization and safe-use programs.
-The Paradox of “Protection”: The book’s exploration of how gun regulations often fail to prevent violence while infringing on rights mirrors feminist debates about paternalistic policies (e.g., mandatory waiting periods for abortion). This tension—between safety and autonomy—demands nuanced discussion.
-Alternatives as Radical Praxis: Sullum’s proposals for market-based and community-led alternatives (e.g., drug legalization, voluntary risk-reduction tools) offer provocative parallels to feminist mutual-aid models, though they risk underestimating structural barriers.
Constructive Criticism
-Gendered Analysis Missing: While Sullum critiques systemic racism, the book largely ignores how drug and gun policies specifically harm women—particularly survivors of violence, pregnant people targeted by punitive drug laws, or trans women of color facing armed policing. A feminist lens would deepen this critique.
-Structural Myopia: The libertarian focus on individual choice overlooks how systemic inequities (poverty, misogyny, racism) constrain “voluntary” alternatives. Public health thrives on balancing autonomy with collective responsibility—a tension needing more acknowledgment.
Final Thoughts
Beyond Control is a vital but flawed contribution to policy debates. Sullum’s sharp critique of prohibitionist dogma is essential reading, even as his framework demands feminist revision. The book left me galvanized to advocate for truly sensible alternatives—ones that center both liberty and the marginalized communities most harmed by false binaries of control vs. chaos.
Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5) – A thought-provoking starting point, not a final word.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the review copy. In a polarized landscape, this book challenges all sides to think beyond dogma—a rare and needed provocation.
August 1, 2025
Strong Refutation of Gun and Drug Laws. At least in American politics, the political right loves to demand total freedom re: guns (and has a particularly strong textual Constitutional case for exactly that) yet also demand exceedingly harsh punishments for even minor issues wherein a person is using, possessing, or even being anywhere near some substance the government has decided it doesn't like. In American politics, the political left is the opposite - demanding near total freedom re: substances (despite, to be clear, a clear Constitutional case protecting access there) while demanding ever more draconian punishments for any issue they don't like involving certain tools they don't like.
In this text, reasonably well researched with a bibliography clocking in at around 23% of the overall text, Reason Magazine editor Jacob Sullum finally writes a book about the two issues he has spent a career writing for the magazine about: gun control and drug control, and how both have remarkably similar histories and even current arguments.
Sullum shows how both ultimately come from racist and classist origins and actively have racist and classist causes and effects even in today's society. He quotes the oft-cited Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow, while pointing to some of its shortcomings. He cites others across the ideological spectrum, showing the strengths and weaknesses of several different ideas through the course of both early American history up through history as recent as 2024.
Ultimately, this is not even that arguably the strongest take down of both regulatory schemes I've yet encountered in book form - and the fact that Sullum did it with *two* topics (and shows how closely they are linked, despite "both" American Political Parties handling each very differently) at once shows just how much of a master logician he is. I mean, I consider myself reasonably well versed in various forms of debate, but here Sullum may as well be Neo upon discovering that he really is The One, effortlessly slicing through counter arguments as if they were no more substantive than the hot air coming out both sides of Joe Biden's mouth. (And yes, yet again another libertarian-based book, and another book were former US Senator and now former President Joe Biden is cited - and showing how wrong he was - seemingly more often than any other US President, including the current one as I write this review just over a month before publication of this book. The other similar book being Radley Balko's excellent 2013 book Rise Of The Warrior Cop.)
If you're at all interested in gun control or drug legalization in the US, from any position and any angle... you need to read this book. Even if just for opposition research. Because even if I didn't agree with Sullum's positions (and I don't... maybe 5% of the time here ;) ) this truly is a very solidly reasoned and examined argument against government regulation of either object, at least as regulations of either currently stand or are largely even thought of at all, and even if you are 100% opposed to Sullum's stances here, you'll do yourself a favor by examining his arguments if only to try to find a way to counter them.
Truly well done, truly well organized narratively, and absolutely...
Very much recommended.
In this text, reasonably well researched with a bibliography clocking in at around 23% of the overall text, Reason Magazine editor Jacob Sullum finally writes a book about the two issues he has spent a career writing for the magazine about: gun control and drug control, and how both have remarkably similar histories and even current arguments.
Sullum shows how both ultimately come from racist and classist origins and actively have racist and classist causes and effects even in today's society. He quotes the oft-cited Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow, while pointing to some of its shortcomings. He cites others across the ideological spectrum, showing the strengths and weaknesses of several different ideas through the course of both early American history up through history as recent as 2024.
Ultimately, this is not even that arguably the strongest take down of both regulatory schemes I've yet encountered in book form - and the fact that Sullum did it with *two* topics (and shows how closely they are linked, despite "both" American Political Parties handling each very differently) at once shows just how much of a master logician he is. I mean, I consider myself reasonably well versed in various forms of debate, but here Sullum may as well be Neo upon discovering that he really is The One, effortlessly slicing through counter arguments as if they were no more substantive than the hot air coming out both sides of Joe Biden's mouth. (And yes, yet again another libertarian-based book, and another book were former US Senator and now former President Joe Biden is cited - and showing how wrong he was - seemingly more often than any other US President, including the current one as I write this review just over a month before publication of this book. The other similar book being Radley Balko's excellent 2013 book Rise Of The Warrior Cop.)
If you're at all interested in gun control or drug legalization in the US, from any position and any angle... you need to read this book. Even if just for opposition research. Because even if I didn't agree with Sullum's positions (and I don't... maybe 5% of the time here ;) ) this truly is a very solidly reasoned and examined argument against government regulation of either object, at least as regulations of either currently stand or are largely even thought of at all, and even if you are 100% opposed to Sullum's stances here, you'll do yourself a favor by examining his arguments if only to try to find a way to counter them.
Truly well done, truly well organized narratively, and absolutely...
Very much recommended.
November 3, 2025
In Beyond Control, the journalist Jacob Sullum argues persuasively that critics of the drug war (typically progressives) and critics of gun control (typically conservatives) are essentially making the same arguments. Conversely, you could swap words Mad Libs-style in the speeches of drug prohibitionists and gun prohibitionists. Both are making bad arguments. When it comes to guns or drugs, prohibition doesn’t work.
I was familiar with the racist roots of drug laws, but the chapter on the racist roots of gun laws had information that was mostly new to me. “A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home,” wrote the great Civil Rights activist Ida B. Wells, making the case that guns were an effective deterrent to lynching. Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. also recognized that guns could provide some degree of protection when the law failed. It’s no mystery why racist Southern whites sought to strip blacks of their rifles. In Chapter 4, Sullum convincingly argues that, while the rhetoric has changed, gun restrictions continue to punish blacks disproportionately.
I love reading Sullum’s prose (both here and in the pages of Reason magazine) because his paragraphs are like impenetrable fortresses of logical argument. Beyond Control is also beautifully crafted and filled with personal stories that make it a joy to read. I hope this provocative book will be read closely by drug warriors and gun prohibitionists alike.
I was familiar with the racist roots of drug laws, but the chapter on the racist roots of gun laws had information that was mostly new to me. “A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home,” wrote the great Civil Rights activist Ida B. Wells, making the case that guns were an effective deterrent to lynching. Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. also recognized that guns could provide some degree of protection when the law failed. It’s no mystery why racist Southern whites sought to strip blacks of their rifles. In Chapter 4, Sullum convincingly argues that, while the rhetoric has changed, gun restrictions continue to punish blacks disproportionately.
I love reading Sullum’s prose (both here and in the pages of Reason magazine) because his paragraphs are like impenetrable fortresses of logical argument. Beyond Control is also beautifully crafted and filled with personal stories that make it a joy to read. I hope this provocative book will be read closely by drug warriors and gun prohibitionists alike.
November 7, 2025
This book clearly demonstrates the link between gun control drug prohibition, and racism to the point of being repetitive. The author encourages a focus on harm reduction as a solution, which is good. However, his solutions are too general. I would have appreciated more specific policy proposals. #endthedrugwar
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews