Why not legalize?
John McWhorter asks:
What if hard drugs were available legally and inexpensively?
The good news is that we don't have to guess, because we've already done the experiment. We made an addictive, neurotoxic, mind-altering drug available, legally and inexpensively. The drug is called alcohol. Are we having fun yet?
Ethan points out that alcohol and nicotine do more damage than most of the illicit drugs. He could have stated that more strongly: alcohol alone does more damage than all illicit drugs combined. I can't figure out why that counts as an argument for legalization; if the drug we legalized does more harm than the drugs we still prohibit, doesn't that suggest that legalization tends to increase harm by increasing the number of problem drug users?
Leaving nicotine aside, alcohol abuse accounts for between three-quarters and seven-eights of all the drug abuse in the United States, with about 15 million people at any given meeting clinical criteria for alcohol abuse; the comparable figure for all illicit drugs together is something like 4 million.
Of course, legalizing cocaine (including crack), heroin, and methamphetamine would eliminate the problems of illicit drug markets and enforcement against them. But there's no reason to think that those drugs, if legal, would have fewer addicts than alcohol now has. Nor is there a reason to think that addiction to other drugs would replace addiction to alcohol. We wouldn't have an illicit-drug-market problem; instead we'd have a massive problem of drug abuse (and, in the case of the stimulants, intoxicated crimes and accidents).
That's not to defend the War on Drugs. There are much smarter ways to reduce drug abuse and illicit-market and enforcement side effects than our current policies. I discuss some of them in this recent essay. But "legalization" doesn't "solve the drug problem;" it just gives us a different set of drug problems.
Both the drug warriors pursuing their fantasy of a drug-free society (not including their favorite drug, alcohol) and the legalization agitators imagine that there's a simple way out of this mess. There isn't. There are many useful things to do, but none of them fits on a bumper sticker.
Comments (43)
I notice the missing elephant---marijuana. Any lingering problems in the Netherlands are because it is not fully legal and legitimate, not because it is decriminalized.
The point about prohibition is not that alcohol is good for you (although that argument can be made), but that we somehow survive allowing people to do what they want.
December 12, 2007 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
we somehow survive allowing people to do what they want
What a radical concept-- not letting government micromanage everyone!
My guess is, the percentage of the population that will be addicted is constant no matter what. It's just a matter of choosing the societal consequences you want.
December 12, 2007 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to see you back.
December 12, 2007 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I might try to come at this issue a little differently: pharmacologically, and, in particular, the effects of drugs that have a high probability of affecting people other than the ones taking the drug. The first class of drugs that come to mind, on that basis, are antibiotics, especially those used as generic agricultural growth stimulants rather than to treat specific animal infections. There is a reasonable body of science indicating that multidrug resistant infections in humans are more common, and one of the factors -- not the only one -- are the combined development of new strains in animals, and the development of new human strains based on low-dose exposure from meat.
For a second class, I will start with the working assumption that drugs are available in pure and cheap form. In other words, let's set aside the "will steal to buy more drugs", and focus on the effects of the drugs. Of the major classes, the ones most likely to cause aggressive behavior are dissociative anesthetics like phencyclidine (PCP) and ketamine, anabolic steroids, sympathetic amine stimulants such as the amphetamines, and possibly cocaine and derivatives. All of these do have legitimate medical and/or veterinary applications.
There are reasons to be concerned about opioids, but they are different. Improper intravenous administration of any drug, especially with needle sharing, spreads infections, and not HIV alone. Many, but not all users of such drugs will spend their days nodding and not being able to do much, so there may well be a drain on social services -- but the violence and infection propagation are less likely. It is interesting to note that when high doses of opioids are prescribed, appropriately, for nonterminal chronic pain, the patient has no particular craving for more drug than needed to block pain, and often functions normally. One of the surprising things learned about opioids is that as long as the increases in dosage are done knowledgeably, there isn't a hard maximum dose in the presence of pain, and they do not necessarily hasten death.
Marijuana, as the plant form, also tends not to be associated with aggression. There have been several recent discoveries of molecular-level cannabinoid receptors where these chemicals may be beneficial, other than the better-known effects of reducing nausea, helping with wasting syndromes, reduction of chronic pain. Early research in animals is suggesting beneficial effects, for example, on diabetes. That doesn't mean rushing out to prescribe them, but they have to be treated as any other research drug and not as needing an exceptional justification.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aggressive behavior isn't the main reason for taking legal notice of drugs. It's when drug-taking and especially drug-seeking behavior takes over the person's life so that they lose jobs, marriages, custody of children, etc. When any significant number of people do that, it becomes a public problem. And public health is part of the common law police power.
There's a libertarian argument that most people can take drugs without their lives falling apart. Clearly this is the case for alcohol. People who start taking cocaine or opiates typically go for a period of months when they take the stuff occasionally. Some never go on to structuring their lives around getting the next dose. Pre-crack, the estimate for cocaine was that less than 10% proceeded to drug-fiend status. That is still a lot of social damage, and we've made the non-libertarian decision to deny the fun of recreational drug use to people who won't have a problem in order to protect the vulnerable few.
Essentially, it has nothing to do with morality. If a virus were going around that messed up people's lives, society would be well advised to prevent its spread. But thinking moralistically is only randomly related to thinking effectively.
December 14, 2007 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are both talking of behaviors, but I'm a little confused that, for example, you consider that the result of loss of jobs, marriages, or custody of children significant social problem against which the use of the police power is appropriate. Jobs and childcare do have measurable economic consquences, but I suggest there are quite a number of factors that contribute to job loss and breakup of marriages, with exogenous chemical intake being well down on the list of causes. It would be interesting, for example, to do some correlations between the unemployment (and divorce) rate (or count) with economic and social factors including income disparity, offshoring, tax policies that discourage investment, and, possibly, the supply of MBAs and lawyers.
Without doing the statistical analysis, I would still wager that the correlation coefficient for economic/legal factors versus recreational drug use, as a predictor of job loss or marriage breakup, is considerably higher than the chemical factors.
You will note that my first controlled category was antibiotics, for which the public health impact of inappropriate use, even by physicians, is clear-cut. Dissociative anesthetics, sympathetic amines and anabolic steroids, even from a libertarian standpoint, are strongly correlated with aggressive behavior, although perhaps less aggressive than the effect of martinis on corporate raiders.
In the absence of ready availability of sterile injection paraphernalia, with the social custom of sharing not to be forgotten, parenteral drug use has a distinct public health impact. While HIV is not transmissible through casual contact, multidrug resistant tuberculosis can transmit with a sneeze, and immunosuppressed people are particularly susceptible to tuberculosis.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 14, 2007 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've mentioned it before, but I have to again reference the study by Gregory S. Paul, for Creighton University, that showed those social-health indicators like broken marriages as being worse here than in other modern democracies.
Given that some of those democracies have milder drug laws, we can conclude there is no strong correlation between recreational-drug availability and weak families.
December 14, 2007 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was thinking, or at least writing, more in descriptive than normative mode there. The factors you mention are probably more important for social dysfunction, but people don't do a dispassionate multivariate correlation. They notice that there's a new fad for hard spirits or crack cocaine. Then they notice lives falling apart. Hogarth etchings appear. Support groups form. Laws are written. Historically, this is how the police power is invoked, one emergent problem at a time.
There's no problem when there's some rationality to it and the use of the police power is straightforward, like closing down the Broad Street Pump. It's obviously susceptible to corruptions, as when a dominant group uses it to stigmatize or harass, or when the budget of the "corrections" industry becomes a political holy cow. But it's been part of the common law for a long time for good reason.
December 14, 2007 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL...I don't think John Snow especially thought about police authority, as opposed to action. Glad to see someone else here aware of that great man.
While in mildly silly mode, I wonder if people that can do multivariate correlation are more or less helpful to the social system. One probably has to stratify them into those with an MBA and those without.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 14, 2007 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree- no bumper sticker solutions
But the key here in my opinion is the failed war on drugs which is clearly a war on racial minorities and the poor. It is indeed a great American tragedy.
A good start would be -
- decriminalization -especially THC
- reducing the demand for ALL drugs (licit and illicit) by reducing the conditions that foster a need for escape from often a very painful and miserable existance.
Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com
December 12, 2007 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the problems we have with drugs in this country is the puritanical notion that suffering is good for the soul. People with a legitimate need of pain medication don't get it because of societal pressure on the medical community, while the people who don't need pain medication (at least on the physical level) can get it just about anywhere.
If terminally ill patients get addicted to heroin, morphine or other pain medications, why is this a problem? How can it make a difference at that point what the cause of death is?
December 12, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
As you probably know, "addiction" is really multidimensional. The physiological effects of opioid withdrawal, in the absence of psychological dependency, are generally less severe than withdrawal from nicotine, while withdrawal from some barbiturates is life-threatening and often needs ICU support.
If, for example, a terminal patient's pain is due to pressure from a specific metastatic tumor, and that tumor is debulked surgically or with radiation, the pain can reduce or stop. In those cases, the patient often wants the opioids withdrawn faster than may be medically desirable.
The challenge is more the use of long-term opioid therapy in non-terminal disease. There are any number of situations where that is appropriate treatment. To take one case, consider a patient with moderate to severe musculoskeletal pain from a chronic condition, and that patient also is a severe asthmatic who cannot take aspirin, acetaminophen, or the various cyclooxygenase-suppressing NSAIDs. Opioids are a reasonable choice.
Political or popular misconceptions also get involved. For example, methadone is not uniquely associated with addiction medicine. It's an orally active, relatively nonsedating, drug for moderate to severe pain. Methadone is much cheaper, and has less abuse liability, than Oxy-Contin or orally delivered morphine preparations. While I haven't checked recently, South Carolina used to have state laws restricting its use to addiction treatment by practitioners with a special license.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 12, 2007 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
BevD
I am not at all for denying pain meds to patients who need them.
I feel that people who need "pain" meds to escape a miserable existance represents a failure of our nation.
Dr. Rick Lippin
December 12, 2007 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Considering that, for example SCHIP was just vetoed, how would you get our nation to address the pain of those who turn to drugs? There is money (tons of it) to fight the "war on drugs" but precious little to change the conditions that lead to miserable people turning to drugs in the first place.
Jan
December 14, 2007 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, of course cannabis is different. If you'll follow the link, you'll see that I propose a policy of "Grow your own."
And yes, some of us survive the current policy of letting people drink as they please, including people already convicted of alcohol-related crimes. Some of us, on the other hand, don't survive, including the victims of drunk-driving accidents and drunken homicides (about half of all homicides).
As to the "guess" that the proportion of the population that becomes addicted is constant, it's about as good as the "guess" that the world was made in six days 6000 years ago. It has no basis in evidence. Historically, the rate of drug addiction varies sharply over time and across societies.
December 12, 2007 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
So why aren't we all drunks, then? The stuff's never been handier-- I just got back from Costco, where they have a booze section bigger than my house. How come I'm not drinking myself into a stupor right now? Why has middle-class drinking gone down in the last 50 years? (Read The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, or watch a movie like Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, and you'll be amazed at how much routine drinking goes on. Is that evidence? Yes, the fact that no one noticed it as being unusual at the time is.)
I'd like to see a citation for the refutation, not just a blithe dismissal, of my "guess," but in any case, your argument and mine are coming at each other from a 45-degree angle, at least. Yes, drunks kill people on the road. Yet raising that obvious fact seems to carry with it the assumption that we can meaningfully affect the number of drunks through legislation, which prompts an obvious historical counterargument.
My point is, what we can mainly meaningfully affect is the way in which drunks get drunk. We can make them drink secretly, furtively, hurriedly, drinking alcohol whose potency and contaminants are unknown to them, creating a huge illicit industry which corrupts much of the rest of society-- a fair description of the Prohibition era's main result. Or we can integrate drinking into our society in a way that reduces its destructive side effects, encouraging more responsible and measured drinking, and a regulated and safe industry. I think that one's pretty much settled by history.
I guess my real question is... what's your argument here, other than that you're more insightful than "the drug warriors pursuing their fantasy of a drug-free society (not including their favorite drug, alcohol) and the legalization agitators [who] imagine that there's a simple way out of this mess"?
December 12, 2007 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes indeed.
Seems to me that researchers in the field are fairly confident in the value of measured addiction rates. I take that term to mean the percentage of people that are risky for addiction could be constant even when availability and total number of users varies.
As to growing, home-brewed beer is good, also, but I still admire a fine commercial brew.
December 12, 2007 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
If growing pot for personal consumption is acceptable, what is the moral or pragmatic objection to allowing commercial production and sale?
Some of us, you admit, survive society's permissiveness WRT alcohol. Some of us? Care to quantify that? Using the same word -- "some" -- to describe both those who survive and those who don't implies that the two sets have a similar number of members, does it not? Would you say that it might be a bit more precise to state that the overwhelming majority of us survive, and that ratio of survivors to non-survivors is a multiple-digit number?
And if the addiction rates vary "sharply over time and across societies," what makes us think that we can tame it with legislation?
Although your argument lacks substance overall, it does make some telling points. Why reduce the credibility of those few valid points by setting them alongside lame and disingenuous statements?
December 14, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would you say that it might be a bit more precise to state that the overwhelming majority of us survive
Thank you, of course that's right. I myself survived a very nice glass of Warre's Optima port tonight. I didn't lose my house or beat my wife or anything. ($20/bottle at Costco, a very pleasant slow sip.)
What is his argument? I really am stumped as to what he's saying, but the first problem with it, in any case, is that most drinkers don't have a drinking problem-- and most tokers don't have one with that either.
December 14, 2007 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, but again, even the word "most" here is a gross understatement. One might legitimately write that "most" Americans own a car, but to write that "most" Americans speak some English might leave the reader with the impression that the author is attempting to get away with something.
I'll give him this, though: It's been close to 20 years since I last smoked a joint and I still miss it.
December 15, 2007 3:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Surely you take your duties of citizenship seriously enough that you have presented yourself to a police station, confessed and accepted the punishment due. I hope the prison time wasn't a great inconvenience and the conditions not tramatically harsh. Just remember that it was a small price to pay for living in a civilized society.
December 15, 2007 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still have the scars on my ankles and wrists from the shackles. Not to mention th...no, it's too painful to talk about, even now.
December 15, 2007 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
But down deep you can feel good about having earned a clean conscience. And when you can bring yourself to discuss it, there are some handsome fees for addressing anti-drug groups and sehool programs.
December 15, 2007 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the legalization of alcohol and tobacco hasn't done much of anything to stop the black market trade in them. Canada especially has been having great problems with the black market in these two drugs.
Whether other drugs should be legalized or not, we'll still have the underlying social problems of black markets, addiction and crime to support addiction.
December 12, 2007 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't aware that Al Capone was still in operation and shooting it out in the streets over alcohol turf. Of course, legalization of alcohol has done incredible amounts to reduce the black market trade, and the violence and corruption associated with it. (I won't even touch the bizarre notion of the "legalization" of tobacco.)
There are basic economic principles dealing with black markets. Sure, if you raise taxes to an extreme on a product, or if you have unequal taxation or regulation in neighboring jurisdictions, then, if the difference is enough, a black market will emerge, but not nearly to the degree, the virility, or the danger related to prohibition black markets. People prefer to purchase legally and will do so if the price and availability is kept in a reasonable line.
Under legalization and regulation of drugs, there will be a dramatic reduction in black markets and their associated violence and corruption. There will be a dramatic reduction in prison and enforcement costs. There will still be addiction, but we'll be able to focus resources on those who need it, instead of wasting billions of dollars locking up those who aren't addicted. And crime to support addiction will be dramatically reduced if you follow an appropriate regulatory model related to the specific drug (as the Swiss have proven in their heroin maintenance programs).
December 12, 2007 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you really think that Al Capone was just shooting it up over alcohol? How bizarre. Not only was it alcohol, it was gambling, numbers running, prostitution, gun running and drugs, just to name a few. Here's an fyi for you - during prohibition domestic crime went down over the board - domestic violence, petty crime, acquaintance murders, burglary - was there a correlation? I don't know the market was going up and it could just as well have been an improved economy.
There aren't any "economic principles dealing with black markets" if there were principles, they wouldn't be black markets. Just thought I'd throw that in there. Black markets exist whether anything is "legal" or not. Even in places where drugs, prostitution and gambling are legal, there is still a black market or underground economy that supports it. What happens is that the reportage of crime takes on a different hue - instead of "drug related" crime it is reported differently. It isn't just "unequal taxation" that causes black markets to arise, it is local businesses that contribute to it - they want to buy merchandize at a lower cost and increase their profit margin - restaurants, bars, kiosks, mom/pop shops all buy from the black market - both alcohol and cigarettes. They manufacture the taxation stamps for the cigarettes and alcohol, and rebottle the alcohol in name brand bottles, which involves more people in the criminal activity. Of course people want to purchase these things legally, most of the time they have no idea that it they are black market goods. I might remind you that in states where these goods are not prohibited, it makes those states sources, which leads to its own kind of crime.
So while legalization of drugs might reduce some crime, the problems and the black markets and the economic problems are still there - they're just hidden better by the state. Then they can continue to ignore the social ills and problems that make drugs attractive in the first place.
December 12, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we really shouldn't be talking about "solving the drug problem" one way or another. We should have laws that support basic human freedoms like the right to get a little zonked out in your own home.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 12, 2007 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
By studying how alcohol has been dealt with in this country I think we can find some helpful indicators in determining how the legalization of some drugs might be handled and the impact they might have on our society. I say help and might because it is a different animal and as such would need to be treated uniquely to a certain degree. But there are laws in place limiting the age at which one can consume alcohol. There are laws in some places limiting the amount an individual may purchase at one time. There are laws which limit who and who may not sell specific types and potency of alcohol. There are laws which state how much an individual can consume before they are a danger to themselves and others if they get behind the wheel of an automobile or operate some other dangerous machinery. But there are no laws preventing or regulating whether a person is a drunk or not. That's left as an individual's choice - to use or abuse. It's certainly not a perfect system but it isn't terrible either and works well enough while still leaving room for individual freedom and ultimately responsibility. Both of which are supposed to be hallmarks of our nation are they not? So why not simply create similar systems and apply them to a list of specific drugs?
Many of us here in America have what some call vices. In some ways we're proud of these and to a degree they reflect a level of freedom and affluence which our nation allows us to have. I think it's safe to say nearly all of us have at least one thing that would make the vice list (I myself have at a minimum 2). And over time, if given a chance and treated rationally, many of these vices have become integrated into society without the wheels coming off the wagon. Take gambling as a fun example. This was seen as a scourge and 'evil' until really quite recently in this country. And it has run the gamut from being seen as a practice of the most morally corrupt to now include comically superstitious grandmothers with their talismans and blotters in the basements of churches getting their bingo fix every week. Some states generate enormous amounts of revenue selling lottery tickets by the millions. Vegas now resembles a bazaar mix of Disneyland and a strip club. And either in spite of this or because of it, family tourism is huge there (I'm shock at the number of families I see whenever I'm in Vegas).
I simply think that prohibition has proven itself to not only not work, but that it actually makes things worse. So let's sit down with level heads and some mature rational thought (not puritanical self-righteousness or some pseudo-religious "moralistic" objections) and try to come up with something better. Mankind has tackled many far more prickly problems than this and I'm confident that this would prove no different.
December 12, 2007 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no evidence that would support the claim that prohibition makes drug addiction worse. Lifting the prohibition doesn't make it better either. The Swiss experiment was a disaster, petty crime increased and the number of addicts went from a few hundred in 1987 to over 20,000 in 1992. The health system was overwhelmed as were the hostels in Zurich. Spain and Italy which legalized the use of cocaine and heroin have the highest rates of addiction in Europe. On the home front, the Alaskan criminalization of marijuana was an abject failure - while teenage use went down across the nation, Alaska's teens' usage increased by 75%.
While decriminalization and legalization might decrease some problems, others increase - it's the Pillsbury Doughboy effect - push it somewhere it'll pop out somewhere else.
December 12, 2007 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps an ideal is for an action to be illegal, but with the condition not bringing criminal liability. We in fact do that to some extent, but the ever-shifting politics around addictions means mostly that addicts can't admit it.
A fair test of legalization would be truly legal and licensed druigs sold in normal commerce, or at least in normal venues like pharmacies. Simply stopping enforcement is often a mess.
By comparison, when Prohibiition was lifted, distributors were ready and so were stores. And the party began.
A different take on alcohol is Barbara Holland's "The Joy of Drinking." Not recommended for children or spouses of alcholics, but great fun and informative, too.
December 12, 2007 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would be hard to predict what would happen, I'm not "for" it or "against" it, I don't think though that it will solve many problems.
As you said, the politics around addiction drives its problems. As long as people look at addiction as a character flaw instead of a medical condition, we'll never get anywhere.
December 12, 2007 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure you're right here Bev. I was perhaps being a bit overly "enthusiastic". ;-)
What do I think occurs is that lifting prohibition brings the true levels of a drug's addiction to light. Although it would also contribute to an increase in those numbers as well, at least initially. But I'm thinking that this might be a helpful step in helping in identifying and treating those with addictions. It would all be above table so to speak. It seems reasonable to assume that the ability to measure the numbers of addicts increases dramatically once a drug is made legal. And inversely it would seem that in a situation where a drug is illegal that access to the true number of addicts would remain largely based on speculation or "educated guesses". And it's policy that is based on those things that ends up missing the mark more often than not and causes so many problems.
I'm not very well informed regarding the details of the Swiss example you mention here but were there any sorts of regulation accompanying the legalization? For example minimum ages, etc? I'm sure there must have been but I'm curious as to what they might have been. I'll need to do some poking around. :-)
December 12, 2007 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, I don't know what would happen if all drugs were legal.
I agree with you on your points for legalization - the entire system is geared towards punishing the poor.
December 12, 2007 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear you Bev. I don't think any of us knows for sure & I thank you for your comments.
December 12, 2007 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Think about this. Is it the drug use that results in the penalty, the consequences on others, or who the users are?
Alcohol results in more accidents and deaths than any of the drugs one can go to jail for just for possession.
If it were just for the injury to society as a whole, alcohol would be the number one criminal drug.
Is the prohibition against drugs based on the detrimental effects on the greatest number of individuals? If so, again alcohol would be the villain.
I am trying to tease out the surrounding negative consequences such as high price causing stealing and lack of clean needles causing sharing and thus disease producing deaths verses the problems caused by the psychotropic drug state itself.
We talk about the military industrial complex sucking up money from the economy, but we do not look at the criminal-injustice system in the same light even though it is an even more waste of assets and humanity that the military industry money sink hole.
I ask is suppression of human potential (jails), investment in death technology, or glorifying the best alcohol drink that kills more individuals than wars over time the height of craziness.
Is alcohol acceptable because of the elates who view it as familial and our drug?
Are other drugs that are viewed as a danger really a reflection of the view of the groups that use it?
Do you think that our society elates would be comfortable discussing this view?
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
December 12, 2007 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alcohol results in more accidents and deaths than any of the drugs one can go to jail for just for possession.
To be fair, it's also much more widely used than any other. I'm sure on a per capita basis, alcohol is not nearly so dangerous as many other things (crystal meth, say) but the total number, given that most of the adult population takes a drink now or then, will always be higher.
December 14, 2007 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, but, if you do that, how are they supposed
to keep the numbers up in the Big House? I mean,
UNICOR's gotta eat too, you know...
The drug I consider to be the most controversial
in the War On Drugs is marijuana. Most of the
potheads I've met, the biggest threat they
are is to a pizza. I've long held the opinion that, if pot were legal, and you could buy it through your local pharmacy, that we'd see a lot of the 'war on drugs' just kind of fold up like a cheap kite. People wanna get high. The medium they choose will be either Lysol, spray paint, other chemicals, alcohol, illegal street drugs, or prescription drugs. Life sucks if you're broke, getting high takes the edge off. Sometimes, life sucks if you're rich, too, which is why people hit the Dom Perignon like it's
going out of style. I think if you're rich,
though, the severity of the sentence you might
face just for holding is going to be a lot less.
Hell, if you're rich, you can buy enough lawyer
to basically get away with murder, a possession
charge is nothing in that framework I guess,
anyway, it's all pretty stupid, and very lucrative for the people that go ahead and sell
the dope anyway. It's like Amway, but with
guns. I think you should be able to get a 'pot license', and puff your way to Nirvana without
fear of reprisal or retribution, but
you have to give up the driver's license to
get it, so you don't inadvertently take anyone
to Nirvana WITH you.
Also, if they legalize pot, I think you'd also
see less people using other stuff. They have
some kind of pot pills, where they put the
active ingredient in a pill...of course if they
started selling those, the bong-makers union
might take issue with it...putting people out
of work, jobs for america etc...
December 14, 2007 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very well put. Because my parents were chain-smokers I cannot STAND to smoke ANYTHING, but my best friend is a devoted pot-smoker, and frankly I don't understand the concept of outlawing a plant! I mean it's not like opium, which has to be chemically altered from the pretty flowers. Marijuana is just a freaking plant!
It is only republicans who are against it -- pssst! They are also against gay sex, just ask any of them who have been caught in bathrooms or have recently retired to spend more time with their families...
My thought on this is that if the profit-motive is removed from illicit drug use, the crime associated with it would necessarily go down. If the addiction rate is neutral, but the crime rate associated with it goes down, isn't that still a good thing? Once the crime rate is down, resources could be devoted to helping those who are adicted.
The way to "decriminalize" drugs (other than natural ones like Marijuana, which people can grow themselves, and are not as dangerous as alcohol) is to prescribe it and control its delivery.
There is a huge international industry wrapped around cocaine, opium, and other mind-altering drugs. Who knows the extent of their influence? It is to their advantage to keeping it illegal because that raises the price.
Food for thought!
Jan
December 14, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the blots on our society is that cannabis is illegal. The only constitutional rationale is public health under the police power, but cannabis is not a threat to public health. It's clearly a sumptuary law, designed to stigmatize the life style of one subset of population and make another feel good about themselves. Why should my tax money be used to support bigotry?
So Alaska's teens used 75% more cannabis after legalization. So effing what. Spending years of adolescence in prison saves them from the terrible fate of cannabis use?
December 14, 2007 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reminding me of that old insult, the sumptuary laws. Perfect term to apply to cannabis prohibition.
Do you get the 75% number from BevD? She doesn't provide info on whether that is questionnaire data or publicly reported use. It would make sense, (and mean diddly), if reported use went up, so I'll assume the opposite. Of course, she used a possibly wrong term, since she said "the Alaskan criminalization of marijuana was an abject failure ".
December 14, 2007 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I took it from her post. I assume she meant "decriminalization". What I was pointing out is that she immediately concludes that if use went up, it was a failure, since everyone knows it's an evil, evil, evil practice.
If you want to be moralistic about it, there's an argument that it's evil to categorize cannabis with opiates and the stimulants that wreck people's lives. Some adolescents will try cannabis, notice that they've been lied to and decide the other warnings are equally erroneous. Even if that would never happen, it seems to be a good general policy that if we're going to throw people in jail for something, it is better to have a reason that a knowledgeable adult can state with a straight face.
December 14, 2007 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You/one/the society we live in cannot control the uncontrollable, and when will people realize that?
Ann Wilson Schaeff began to explore the problem but inexplicably dropped it .. When Society Becomes an Addict was a revolutionary book and its framework for understanding was truly remarkable.
But, sigh, the war on drugs came along and stopped American from taking a good look at what she suggested, putting money into real research into suggested SOLUTIONS.
We cannot get anywhere until this is seen as a medical problem, but on the other hand that is not enough - it must be viewed as a totally systemic problem. Those who try to do that - Mike Ruppert is one - get run out of the US, the biggest ADDICT of them all. Which should tell you all something.
DENIAL of the problem is the biggest obstacle to overcome and with what is happening in the US, I don't see much chance of that for many decades, Big Pharma and Big Business have taken care of THAT.
February 3, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The drug issue at hand has and always will be a public health issue, not a criminal issue. Crime is a side effect of an underlying problem. Drugs harm the person physically and emotionally and affect everyone the person comes into contact with either physically or emotionally. Crime comes about from the fact that drugs are illegal and expensive. Overdose can occur based on the inconsistency of purity levels of drugs. If the FDA controlled the drug market the consistency of purity would be consistent but overdose would still be a problem. People would still do "too much" and wind up in the hospital. As for people breaking into houses and cars this issue is up in the air. Drug addicts would still become bored and would go looking for fun. The mental side of believing one is a criminal already would be the most important thing to study if drugs were legalized. If one did not believe he was a criminal for using drugs would one conduct themselves in a criminal way through all the aspects of life? Drugs and crime currently go hand in hand so someone who uses drugs can justify committing criminal acts because one has already been deemed a criminal. Regardless of whether or not drugs were legal there would still be the problem of addiction. This could be easier handled if drugs were considered a public health issue as opposed to a criminal issue. Those who are currently locked away in jail for simple possessions would instead be getting the help they require in treatment centers. They would not be learning how to become better criminals in prison but would instead be learning how to better themselves and get the "monkey off their back." Addiction will always be a problem regardless of the law but treatment rather than long prison sentences are the answer to the problem. Make it a public health issue and help those with health problems.
Drug Rehab Program
August 2, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink