"I think they think that he’s ruining their lives and hope to deter him."
Yeah, that's the War on Drugs in a nutshell. People imposing life-ruining penalties on strangers because they are afraid "something bad" might happen. But as decades of embarrassing failure have taught us, the "something bad" is far more likely to be a consequence of the laws than the drugs.
Rights, checks, and balances can go out the window because something bad might happen. Eurasia or Eastasia will end the world. Five times as many civilians as died on 9/11 must be secretly killed because something bad has happened. The messenger who told of those 15,000 hidden deaths must be killed because he shone the best disinfectant on our allies Eastasia as brightly as he did on our eternal enemies from Eurasia before, and caused the world to end for four years.
Yeah, that's the War on Drugs in a nutshell. People imposing life-ruining penalties on strangers because they are afraid "something bad" might happen. But as decades of embarrassing failure have taught us, the "something bad" is far more likely to be a consequence of the laws than the drugs.