Tucker Carlson reveals what changed his mind about US drug policy

Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson said Friday on his show that he’s changed his perspective on U.S. drug policy, saying the issue stems from supply, not demand.

Following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, his second administration designated cartels as terrorist organizations, citing their role in “flooding the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.” While speaking with former Daily Caller social media coordinator Chris Cella, Carlson said that attending a drug policy conference shifted his views on how the U.S. should approach the crisis.

“So in between jobs once — and I got fired from another job — I was an unpaid fellow at a libertarian think tank in D.C. I thought I was a libertarian — sort of am libertarian in a lot of ways still. I really don’t want to bother other people,” Carlson said. “But I left after a drug policy conference that I went to that really kind of changed my thinking on the world.”

“At it, they explained the libertarian position on drug policy, which is kind of America’s position on drug policy, which is ‘It’s the drug addict’s fault. Like people get addicted to drugs. That’s their problem. That’s their fault.’ And it’s kind of the demand explanation for the drug epidemic. It’s like we have a lot of drugs because people want a lot of drugs in this country,” Carlson added. “It’s not Mexico’s or China’s fault or the drug dealer’s fault.”

In March, Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz urged the Department of Justice to restart drug interdiction efforts at U.S. airports and transportation facilities. In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the two lawmakers called for the reinstatement of Drug Enforcement Administration searches, which were removed in 2024 under the Biden-Harris administration.

“Yeah, no, the desire for it,” Cella responded. “That’s what Mexico says.  It’s like if you people didn’t want it so badly.”

“Exactly. I thought, you know, that makes sense. I mean, it’s kind of like one of those lines you hear. They’re like, yeah, that sounds right. Then you think of your own life and then you think of the people you know who got tragically fucked up or killed by drugs. Of course, I know a lot of them,” Carlson said. “You think, ‘No, actually,’ like some of them are — like your mom — a super-healthy person, obviously a distance runner, the healthiest person in America — distance runners. She has an injury, and some doctor gives her a drug and she becomes an addict.”

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Carlson then shared Cella’s story, explaining how, as an insecure high school student, he tried drugs, which led him to become a needle-dependent heroin addict. Carlson described how Cella eventually attacked members of the Mexican Mafia with pepper spray, narrowly escaping death.

“That suggests to me that what we have is a supply problem, not a demand problem, like you’re in. You probably would have been happy with Bud Light or Coors Light or whatever,” Carlson said.

“Instead you wind up on heroin because you had access to this drug. So if you take 100 people and give them heroin every day for a month, like what percentage become junkies? All of them?” Carlson asked. “I was just thinking this at this drug policy conference, and I was like, ‘Actually, you’re all liars, probably getting paid by Purdue Pharma to lie.’ And it’s the Cato Institute. They’re definitely liars. I can say that now. But I didn’t understand it because this is the one topic I knew something about, having lived it.

Despite the Trump administration’s efforts in the U.S. war on drugs, Republican legal experts said in April that suspending enforcement of a key provision of the Corporate Transparency Act could enable cartels to facilitate fentanyl and human trafficking through shell corporations.

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