Trust infrastructure as public safety infrastructure Debates about drug policy usually focus on laws. Change the statutes. Elect different officials. Argue that criminalization causes harm. Sometimes this works. Often it doesn’t. Because many of the harms associated with the “war on drugs” are not primarily legal. They are structural. They arise from a simpler condition: Illegal markets lack trust infrastructure. And when trust is missing, violence substitutes. If people cannot rely on contracts, courts, or reputation, they rely on intimidation and retaliation. That substitution is mechanical, not cultural. Any market behaves this way under those constraints. If the goal is safer neighborhoods, the first problem to solve is not legislation. It is trust. Why illegal markets are disproportionately violent Legal markets use: contracts arbitration licensing credit history reputation systems Disputes get resolved economically: someone loses access, not bl...