Anyone can start a Freedom Democrat club in their neighborhood—just throw a party.

Do that again week after week. The basic organizing principle is getting people who party to unite, pool their votes, and let the politicians see the support from those of us who think it is no crime to get high. The radicals among us can damn politicians for forcing us to buy drugs illegally. It is far better to get drugs as safe as those that treat allergies, headaches, and fevers. These drugs are made under strict government supervision, their doses are disclosed, and the pills are uniform. Drugs made in the illegal market in back rooms are unreliable and often dangerous. This is discrimination—a denial of medical care—against drug users.

More than 100,000 people die of drug overdoses every year, and most often at least some of their drugs are made illegally. It is doubtful that we can bring drug overdoses down to zero, but we can certainly make it unusual and rare.

 Politicians supporting drug prohibition simply told users of oxy, “Stop!” It is a policy that is wildly improbable. It is true that these drugs are addictive for some people, and that means, as any teenager and the public knows, that the users won’t stop, no matter what the government says.

It was a fatal mistake, and the officials who are supposed to curb crime were actually creating a market for illegal drugs. That is how bad policy spread fentanyl across the nation. By being strict, officials were bolstering the market for illegal drugs. In the name of fighting crime, they were encouraging it.

The thoughtless condemnation of drugs, like its related criminalizing of sex workers and the constant threat of curbing pornography, are unpopular, but those of us who fight prohibition must publicly call for a new policy.

These are Freedom Democrats.

This is not a new policy. The prohibition against abortion killed women and made medical care illegal. In state after state, with women leading the way, doctors were allowed to care for their patients.

But when it comes to drug use, the government limits medical care. This must stop. It is up to the doctor and his/her patient to determine the best way to proceed. If a doctor and a patient want to continue drug use, the patient should have access to drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. The ill effects of these medications will be smaller, and no one will be forced to go to dealers. The big losers will be the drug syndicates.

Politicians, with great hesitation, are slowly realizing this truth. Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota who is Kamala Harris’s running mate, mocks Republican’s misplaced severity. Governor Walz says, “Across our nation, we have been witnessing a full-on assault against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights: the freedom to vote; the freedom to be safe from gun violence; the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water ; the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride; and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government telling her what to do.”

Walz updates freedom with his charge that for Republicans freedom means the government has the freedom to enter the examination room, tell us what books to read, and stop teachers from candidly discussing American history.

The time is right for Freedom Democrats to organize, so throw a party every week. The people who love freedom will increase visibility and push Democrats to accept people as they are, not as some wish them to be.