Here's some evidence, though: treatment programs don't actually
On the other hand, prison doesn't really seem to do a good job of curing drug habits, and it also really screws up the lives of the people we sent there. It's almost . . . why, it's almost as if the libertarians were right all along!
One thing I wonder is how much law enforcement favors drug laws for themselves, or whether they view them as a way to catch bad guys who are otherwise untouchable. I think most people who favor criminalization genuinely mostly want to protect their children from the possibility of acquiring a drug habit--and don't much think about the price that poor kids, and their neighborhoods, end up paying for the laws that send the seller to prison and the user to treatment. But I'm not sure that's how the professionals who support these laws view it, because they're presumably all too aware of how abysmally the laws fail to protect many peoples' kids. I have spoken to three narcotics cops in my life; all three favored legalization, on the grounds that it was simply not possible to make any serious dent in the supply of drugs.
I wonder if instead these aren't the modern way of "getting Al Capone for tax evasion"--a convenient way to throw gangsters in the pokey for other crimes. It is presumably easier to trace the transshipment of large quantities of cocaine back to the kingpin than the murder of one of his underlings. If you believe--and I have heard quite plausible arguments that it is so--that the gangsters at the top are predators who settled on drugs as the most lucrative area for predation, rather than a product of the black market, than this is not entirely unreasonable.
I still think that it would not make sense to criminalize drugs. I'm against "Getting Al Capone for tax evasion", and especially against the notion that we should create special laws to do so. And it seems perfectly obvious to me that the ancillary human costs of these particular laws would be far too high even if I supported them in principle. But it does suggest that libertarian arguments to the drug enforcement community may be addressing the wrong question: we're offering devastating arguments to refute the notion that drug users are bad, or at least bad in a sense that can be justly or even usefully cured by prison. If what they're asking is "Do these laws help me catch bad guys?" then our answers aren't really germane.
The Al Capone attack is a bad idea, nothing inspires violent rage than being wrongly punished.
Here's some evidence, though: treatment programs don't actually seem to work. So it's foolish to spend money on them.
Actually, the point of the linked article is that there is a lack of evidence as to whether these programs do work, in part because of difficulties of collecting data and in part because of variations in rehab programs:
That is very different from actual evidence that the programs do not work.I think Prohibition was the single worst policiy mistake this country has ever made.
1) It taught millions of Americans to ignore laws they don't like.
2) It made political corruption really profitable.
3) It taught organized crime that there is really big money in controlled addictive substances. When Prohibition ended the racketeers had to find new sources of revenue.
Now we have an Advocacy, Bureacratic, and Commercial complex invested in the War On Drugs.
It is germane to note that Al Capone only needed to be "got" for tax evasion because liquor was illegal at the time (and thus extremely profitable to manufacture and distribute).
Just like drugs are now.
Drug laws create high-level criminals at the same time as they give us a means to actch them. Organized criminal enterprises can only exist where there's a market that isn't being served by the legal economy. The lottos are largely gone, prostitution and gambling are being heavily squeezed by the internet, protection still exists but the ethnic ghettoes (where criminals served as de-facto police) are shrinking, the credit industry is now more than available to the poor/non english-speaking; where is crime going to go besides drugs? I'd posit that there has to be a critical mass of illegal trade before a functioning criminal organization can sprout, and drugs are the last frontier in a post-craigslist and bodog society.
We don't need extra laws to catch Al Capone, the market will strangle him for us. It's not like he could move gin cheaper than seagrams without law enforcement shackling his legitimate competitors
I saw absolutely nothing in that article that says "treatment programs don't actually seem to work". I did see discussions about how some treatments programs seem to work better than others, and how there's been pressure to use those better-working programs.
Pretty sure you're just reading your pre-exisiting biases into the article.
"As a libertarian, of course"...
You mean, "as a pro-Obama-libertarian", right? Which bears the same relationship to actual libertarianism as Bush's "compassionate conservatism" does to conservatism.
You can talk freedom all you want, but your actions are not those of one who is concerned about freedom.
Think about religious tolerance, but not from a leftist perspective ("they're all really the same, so why fight"), but from the perspective of a believer. Which is, "if I don't act, that person is going to hell, to burn eternally".
Burning in hell for eternity is worse than about anything; certain it is worse than being strung out on drugs half the time, or even spending your life in a prison. Could you stand by as a loved one, or even a friend or acquaintance, destroyed his life with drugs?
So you can see that religious tolerance was not the simple thing we sophisticated post-Christians like to think. It was the hardest thing in the world! But they did learn it, because they learned via centuries of bloodshed what intolerance led to.
Modern Americans are no longer capable of much tolerance, in that original sense. That sense being, allowing something to happen even though you know it is wrong. Instead, the law is all-embracing. The modern state has taken the mantle of the church, to be all, see all, and have opinions on every aspect of the moral life.
Thus, our language has changed. Tolerance in the original sense is still meaningful between individuals, but it has no real meaning within the modern church-state. Instead we are taught our modern "tolerance", which means "acceptance" and even "celebration of". We are to "tolerate" all that is good, and abhor those modern evils (racism, sexism, retrograde attitudes, etc.) that are always and ever wrong. No tolerance of such evil is possible. How can you accept and celebrate something that is wrong? You cannot.
This is why the drug laws are what they are, and why they will continue. The bloodshed that surrounds them is kid stuff, by comparison to, say, the 30 years war, which resulted in the loss of something like 1/3 of the population of Germany of the time. It is disgusting, but I see no reason why we will not tolerate (old sense) a few thousand murders per year, and the degradation of the inner cities, indefinitely. Of course, we cannot and do not tolerate (new sense) these things. We issue strongly worded statements and form committees, and raise awareness, incessantly!
"One thing I wonder is how much law enforcement favors drug laws for themselves"
Bingo. The war on drugs is nothing more than a massive make-work program for law enforcement.
But we are pouring tremendous amounts of money into th eDrug War, with little to show for it. Legalize certain drugs (e.g., marijuana, cocaine but not crack cocaine, possibly a poppy derivative) and control them the way alcohol and tobacco are controlled now. Yes, yes, I know, some drugs will trickle down to youngsters the same way that alcohol and tobacco do, but do you really think there will be more illicit drug use than there is now by the under 18 age group?
Then take half the enforcement money that is saved and pour it into voluntary rehab programs and drug education.
Don't forget, we will be taxing the legal drugs the same way we tax alcohol and tobacco, so there will be some additional revenues attached to this proposal in addition to all the enforcement money saved.
What do we gain?
(1) An end to financing vicious criminals such as the Colombians, inner city gaings, etc.
(2) An end to the attempts to get around the Constitution that drug enforcement laws seem to cause. (Did you know that the library records flap in the Patriot Act was interesting because library records were already accessible to law enforcement investigating drug crimes, and no one raised a fuss when that went into effect.)
(3) An end to inner city youths choosing the lucrative illegal drug trade rather than prepare for real jobs in the economy.
(4) Vastly reducing the number of illegal guns on the street, as the number one reason for getting (and using) illegal guns will be gone.
(5) Greatly reducing property crimes now caused by druggies stealing to support theri drug habit.
(6) Greatly reducing the now-required enforcement money spent, including the extra police officers, Coast Guard expenses, prison expenses, prosecutor and public defender expenses, and the intolerable strain on both the state and federal judiciary systems. Did you knwo that back in the mid-eighties that drug cases were in the minority on federal court dockets? Now they are in the majority, and because criminal cases take precedence over civil cases, federal civil cases that used to come to trial within a year now come to trial within three years.
So, what's not to like about legalizing certain drugs?
There's a third way: harm reduction. Switzerland has had some particular success in this regard with an overall reduction in heroin usage.
See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16753485
This, coupled with 'decriminalization', might well lead to the legalization of narcotics.
Abuse of drugs can certainly be destructive. However, in America--the land of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness'--shouldn't this choice be left up to the individual? We tolerate all of the death and destruction wrought be allowing folks todrive cars. Why should drug usage be any different.
yoni lengyel said: "Abuse of drugs can certainly be destructive. However, in America--the land of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness'--shouldn't this choice be left up to the individual? We tolerate all of the death and destruction wrought be allowing folks todrive cars. Why should drug usage be any different."
Because drugs don't help you get to work on time? ;)
It's sad that a great many people believe drugs should be legalized and yet everyone accepts that they won't. The recent votes at the state level for marijuana reform are encouraging, but I wish we could move on from this already.
yoni lengyel said: "Abuse of drugs can certainly be destructive. However, in America--the land of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness'--shouldn't this choice be left up to the individual? We tolerate all of the death and destruction wrought be allowing folks todrive cars. Why should drug usage be any different."
Because drugs don't help you get to work on time? ;)
It's sad that a great many people believe drugs should be legalized and yet everyone accepts that they won't. The recent votes at the state level for marijuana reform are encouraging, but I wish we could move on from this already.
The conviction of Capone on tax charges as the same as getting drug dealers on drug charges is a poor comparison. They couldn't get Capone on the alcohol or other crimial charges, so they found a weakness. The drug dealers aren't being sought for drug charges because it is easier than getting them for murders. The reason they are sought by law enforcement in the first place is the drug trafficking - the murder and mayhem of that illegal industry is only a symptom of stupid system.
Make most products legal, regulate and tax them, and take the negative impact of the illegal trade out of the way. Then you can deal with the issues associated with drug use and addiction.
Criminalizing jaywalking would also enable the government to catch a wide swath of people they just know are otherwise involved in bad things. Criminalization of an activity justifies government control. That's why the church basically criminalized sex they couldn't control, and why communist regimes basically criminalize trade they don't control.
The Constitution arguably did not contemplate broad power by Congress to criminalize activities that had nothing to do with the essential functions of government (like stealing military technology). Criminal laws belongs largely at the state level. This is the perfect area for states to compete.
Alas, we live in an age where everything is getting federalized, and most citizens have no idea that they should have an opinion about that. Most people think their opinions should be of the form "Drugs are bad" or "There oughta be a law." The level of discussion among the far left and far right.
1. Many drugs were originally (and only partially) banned because of ethnic ties---people saw an unwelcome ethnic group using them, and thought banning the drug would keep said ethnic group from moving in. See Opium and Chinese workers in San Francisco, Marijuana in the days of Pancho Villa's Mexico, etc. This is why many towns in New England were once "dry towns"---who drank? The Irish.
2. Many cities that have relaxed drug laws are tightening them up--proving that they're not so harmless after all--see Amsterdam. We need to realize that simply legalizng something will have drastic and unpleasant consequences on social behavior.
3. A good solution would be what we've done with alcohol: make buying/selling legal, but enact great penalties for public use. For example, like drunk driving penalties have stiffened and reduced drunk driving percentages, make driving under the influence of Marijuana/heroin/cocaine is a stiff jail time/loss of license. Ditto with public use of drugs--public intoxication should be a heavy fine/jail.
4. Yes, drug laws are often used to grab big fish who can't otherwise be caught---slows them down. Massachusetts DA's opposed the recent decriminalization of minor marijuana possession because of the use of these minor, arbitrary laws for the purpose of harassing bad guys. It remains to be seen if wholescale decriminalization would destablize law enforcement's powers or reduce crime--or both. I certainly want my cops to be able to grab some thug with greasy hands on a pot charge rather than let him walk; then again, I think making it all legal and taxing and regulating it would remove most criminals from the business, and destroy a lot of drug-related crime.
5. Al Capone got nailed on tax evasion because his enterprises were criminal; reporting them would have forced him to admit (under audit) the source of the money. Capone was screwed either way, just Ness and Co. were the most famous for figuring that out.
You will be unsurprised to know that in California one of the largest and loudest advocates for the current drug laws is the prison guards union. Not that they could possibly have any conflict of interest here, of course. Nah, couldn't have any influence on their position....
If you're considering laws that cops use to get bad guys by other means, the real bulk of your attention should go to traffic laws.
NJ devotes a huge portion of its state police to traffic stops on its highways -- not because it thinks dangerous driving is a huge hazard to society (thought it is) but because people who drive really dangerously tend to do other bad things and (better still) they tend to give themselves away when stopped.
If you were just guessing how many traffic stops end up with an arrest for something not traffic related you'd probably think less than 1 percent but the actual number is astronomically higher in some places. I haven't seen the number in awhile but I'd say over a quarter.
Point being: police often don't view the point of laws in the same way as either the public or (in many cases) the people who actually pass the laws.
Orgaized crime is still involved with the brothels in Amsterdam (importing women from Eastern Europe and Asia to work there). What makes people think that they still wouldn't be involved with the legalized drug trade?
This isn't a bullet-proof argument against legalization, as an illegally run pot shop can still be audited, investigated,etc. But the notion that legalizing drugs will make the criminals go away is simplistic.
There is no hell, or God, so I find it difficult to empathize with someone who worships an imaginary being.
Rex,
Yours is a half-baked, awful idea.
The same scenario is still in play for those drugs which aren't decriminalized. Which is to say, the murders, corruption, and violence still continues.
Why wouldn't organized crime be involved in the legalized drug trade? Because there's no way they can compete more viciously than Philip Morris and Pfizer.
There is a philosphical problem with the approach to the use of substances such as marijuana, cocaine, etc. The problem is that the moral crusaders treat it as a legal problem, which results in laws against certain activity. Use of these substances, especially those that are very addictive is a health problem.
Using laws to change behaviour results in a black market and the other very harmful behaviours to control that market - the violence that is typical of the illegal drug trade. It also results in an huge investment by the legislative authority to control the original criminal activity (trafficking in illegal drugs) as well as the related crime (the murder and mayhem).
Using the health problem scenario would eliminate the need for the infrastructure to stop the drug trade and the accompanying murder and mayhem, and allow the authorities to focus on the problems associated with the actual use of the drugs (rather than the trafficking of them).
I second Jack's comment/question. Even if the kingpins are predators by nature, and just happened to settle on drugs, where would they go without prohibition? There's only so many criminal enterprises out there, and legalization would reduce that number.
Maybe I'm missing it, but it seems like the law enforcement case you're describing doesn't make sense, Megan (not that this is your problem...)
Well, let me just be contrarian here, since just about everyone is calling for the legalization of drugs on the ground that drug addiction couldn't get any worse. We already have have a text-book case of what happens when drugs are legalized and made widely available, and that is 19th-Century China.
In a nutshell...
Opium addiction was mostly unknown in China before 1800. Starting around 1820, Britain began massive imports of opium to China to help pay for its import of goods fdrom China. Opium addiction skyrocketed The government of China, alarmed at rising addiction rates, banned the import of opium. Britain fought 2 wars to overturn the banning of opium imports. Eventually, indigenous Chinese suppliers got into the act. Chinese addiction rates exploded upward , until by 1906, a substantial percentage of Chinese were addicted. From Wikipedia,
A massive confiscation of opium by the Chinese emperor, who tried to stop the opium deliveries, led to two Opium Wars in 1840 and 1858, in which Britain suppressed China and traded opium all over the country. After 1860, opium use continued to increase with widespread domestic production in China, until more than a quarter of the male population was addicted by 1905.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium
Later, draconian repression by Mao helped stamp out widespread drug addiction in China.
In light of that article, there really may be worse things than the current policy of prohibition. I myself don't like the current policy much. I just think that libertarians are living in a fools paradise when they conclude that legalizing drugs would not lead to a massive upturn in both drug abuse and drug addiction, with the attendant problems that both would create. The real world example tends to indicate the opposite. My $ 0.02.
The same scenario is still in play for those drugs which aren't decriminalized. Which is to say, the murders, corruption, and violence still continues.
It is? Got any examples?
Now, it is true that there's a certain amount of crime revolving around legal drugs that are prescription only (i.e, oxycontin, etc.). But that, too, is a form of that ludicrous idea known as prohibition: we prohibit the use of certain substances unless you've got a permission slip from a state-authorized professional. If an adult wants to try or sell opiates or weed or coke or whatever -- I say let him. There's absolutely no reason there can't be a peaceful, non-criminal trade in such substances just as there was in 1890.
We already have have a text-book case of what happens when drugs are legalized and made widely available, and that is 19th-Century China.
We also have another example: the United States and much of the rest of the world prior to the year 1900. Indeed, you can say the same thing of the United States and the world circa 2009 -- just remove the "legal" and be sure to keep the "widely available."
I just think that libertarians are living in a fools paradise when they conclude that legalizing drugs would not lead to a massive upturn in both drug abuse and drug addiction, with the attendant problems that both would create.
I strongly suspect drug use would increase with legalization, but I doubt it would be massive. Anybody who wants drugs can get them now; the law law is hardly standing in their way. Moreover, legalization/decriminalization would likely be accompanied by an increase in social disapprobation: employers would be perfectly free to demand a drug-free workforce, for instance, and would now have a powerful incentive to intensify detection efforts. Legalization wouldn't bring about libertarian paradise. It would just makes our streets safer, our citizens less prone to being marked (and unemployable) for life, and it would save us a ton of cash.
I disagree that 'anyone who wants drugs can get them now'. Many of Megan's arguments revolve around the effect of the thing at the margins (e.g. homosexual marriage). How many more people would try these drugs if they were as easy to get as alcohol? What effect would that have? As has been pointed out, it didn't work so well for China and Amsterdam.
IMHO many people try alcohol (and "harder" drugs) and can handle it. A small percentage seem to become hopelessly addicted. My fear is that we don't know how many more people might become addicted, and what the costs, effects on society, etc. might be.
If methamphetamine was sold at Walgreen's between the toothpaste and the toilet paper, would there be more or less addiction?
Opiate narcotics can be legally bought now, with a doctor's prescription. Should we do away with the system of prescriptions? Should anyone be able to walk ito Rite-Aid and buy any medication they say they need, from morphine to cipro to digitalis?
Everybody who has seen a few episodes of Sopranos knows that drug laws are FREQUENTLY used as a stick to make "bad guys" help get convictions on bigger conspiracy charges, etc.
However, it's also a handy tool for badgering minorities.
What it is not, is preventing widespread usage. Good numbers are hard to find, but I suspect pot users are very close to out-numbering tobacco users at this point.
"Everybody who has seen a few episodes of Sopranos knows that drug laws are FREQUENTLY used as a stick to make "bad guys" help get convictions on bigger conspiracy charges, etc."
While there is some accuracy to this statement, the problem is that the "bigger conspiracy charges" are usually related to the other bad things that go along with illegal drug trade - the violence and murder, bribing public officials, etc.
If the drug trade was not illegal, the other "bigger conspiracy charges" wouldn't be around either. In many respects this is a circular argument.
The other opposition to legalization of drugs is about what happens to society if more people use and are addicted. Using Amsterdam as an example of getting tougher on drugs is, again, an accurate statement. However, to claim that the societal problems in Amsterdam are any worse than south-central Los Angeles (example only) where drugs are illegal would be an interesting debate.
I strongly suspect drug use would increase with legalization, but I doubt it would be massive.
Against your doubt is the actual evidence that when opium became cheap and widely available in 19th century China, there was a massive increase in addiction. There is a big difference between having a couple of million addicts and and having a quarter of the male population addicted to heroin and cocaine.I suggest that your doubt is wishful thinking.
Anybody who wants drugs can get them now; the law law is hardly standing in their way.
Actually, the law is standing in their way. There is a big difference between going to a crappy neighborhood to buy drugs from hard-faced young thugs, all the while fearing arrest, and walking into your local drug store to buy heroin pills
Moreover, legalization/decriminalization would likely be accompanied by an increase in social disapprobation: employers would be perfectly free to demand a drug-free workforce, for instance, and would now have a powerful incentive to intensify detection efforts.
What? Legalizing drugs will surely result in LESS social approbation, not more. Employers already demand a drug-free workplace and work hard to detect drugs. Legalization would make their problems worse.
Legalization wouldn't bring about libertarian paradise. It would just makes our streets safer, our citizens less prone to being marked (and unemployable) for life, and it would save us a ton of cash.
Son you have really drunk the glibertarian kool-aid. If there is a massive increase in heroin/cocaine addiction, a lot more of our citizens would be marked and unemployable for life. Now there would be less street violence, but more thefts and break-ins and a WHOLE lot more driving impaired accidents. Dunno if our streets would be safer
How many more people would try these drugs if they were as easy to get as alcohol? What effect would that have? As has been pointed out, it didn't work so well for China and Amsterdam.
But it did "work out well" for the vast majority of places that eschewed prohibition (such as the USA before the 20th century). That's not to say that plenty of American weren't opiate addicts in 1890. Plenty indeed were. But plenty are now. The difference between the two is that the latter is accompanied by vastly more dangerous streets and a prison/police apparatus that cost umpteen zillion dollars.
My fear is that we don't know how many more people might become addicted, and what the costs, effects on society, etc. might be.
Well, would you go out and score some H if the law changed? Why do so many otherwise reasonable people suppose that such a high percentage of their fellow human beings are so different from themselves? And at any rate, I'm not advocating that all our current drug laws be unceremoniously junked, and that 711 be allowed to sell meth, and that sixteen year olds be allowed to purchase it there. I simply advocate getting rid of much/most drug prohibitions, in favor of reguation, taxation and education.
Against your doubt is the actual evidence that when opium became cheap and widely available in 19th century China, there was a massive increase in addiction.
And against your assertion is the evidence that opiates were cheap and widely available in 19th century America -- a period that saw the country rapidly become the strongest and most propererous on earth.
Actually, the law is standing in their way.
Of course it's not, at least if by "standing in their way" you mean an efficacious barrier. If you mean "window dressing" I guess I'd concede the point. Every month in the United States millions and millions of illegal drug transactions occur.
Employers already demand a drug-free workplace and work hard to detect drugs.
Er, no, "employers" don't "already demand" this. Some employers do. An increase in the ease of availability of certain currently banned substances would almost certainly prompt more drug testing -- and rightly so. For the record, my position isn't drugs are good! My position is regulation, education and taxation work a lot better than prohibition.
If there is a massive increase in heroin/cocaine addiction, a lot more of our citizens would be marked and unemployable for life.
Nonsense. There wouldn't be a massive rise increase in narcotics use because most people rightly believe the regular consumption of such substances is not conducive to good health or a productive life. Again, would you go out and become addicted to currently illegal drugs if the Big Bad Protective State relaxed drug laws? I sure wouldn't. Most people in the 1880s didn't become addicts. Most people in the 2000s haven't become addicts. Most people wouldn't become addicts post legalization. Curiously, pro-statist folks always seem to possess the attitude that they themselves are rare examples of probity and self-control swimming in a sea of ravenous drug sharks just waiting for the state to give in to their appetites. Did it occur to you that perhaps: A) The lack of judgment, or the psychological portrait, or the socioeconomic factors (or whatever) that increase a person's propensity to become drug addicted are blessedly rare, and that the majority of such unfortunate individuals are already to be found amongst the ranks of the addicted? Also, you missed my point about "marked" and "unemployable." I was referring, of course, to felony drug convictions. Get rid of those, and a person who makes it through rehab has a decent shot at getting his life back together. Under our current destructive policy, plenty of otherwise non-criminal citizens are branded as felons, and that makes getting one's life back on track a tad more, um, challenging. It's a brutal and inhumane method of dealing with the scourge of drug addiction, and I suspect it prompts many a drug addict to give up alltogether (hey, why bother trying to get clean when you'll never get a job better than cleaning toilets). The idiocy of this particualr point of yours is demonstrated by looking at the example of recovering alcoholics: plenty of them enjoy productive lives (our president is surely one of them) because getting help didn't entail a felony conviction, and lots of employers are willing to hire someone with a past substance abuse problem who's now in recovery. Put a felony on that person's record, and it's a whole different ballgame.
Now there would be less street violence, but more thefts and break-ins.
Pops, you've really swallowed the statist kool-aid, and you might want to crack the economics text books again. People don't resort to theft or burglary to support their tobacco or alcohol habits. Allowing for peaceful, legal commerce in substances -- even when those substances are associated with health risks -- permits the government to tax and regulate said commerce, and it permits legitimate businesses to compete on such items as quality and price. Taking away the monopoly currently enjoyed by criminal organizations would decrease their pricing power (indeed it should force them out of business), and reduce the cost of drugs -- thereby allowing a greater percentage of people to support their addictions without resorting to crime.
Dunno if our streets would be safer.
Of course you do, you just don't want to say so in this forum, because the artificially high crime rate flowing from drugs prohibition is the single most powerful argument against your position.
If methamphetamine was sold at Walgreen's between the toothpaste and the toilet paper, would there be more or less addiction?
Probably more. Who is actually arguing that meth be sold at all, or in such a fashion?
Opiate narcotics can be legally bought now, with a doctor's prescription. Should we do away with the system of prescriptions? Should anyone be able to walk ito Rite-Aid and buy any medication they say they need...
Not anyone, no. Certainly not kids. And it depends on the substance, of course, but I personally suspect the best way to proceed would be to allow certain drugs (perhaps one or two purified, substitute forms of opiates, and similar products to fill in for cocaine and amphetamines) to be dispensed by licensed, regulated and taxed specialists. Cannabis could (and should!) of course, be sold in a variety of forms and in a variety of settings -- all of it regulated and taxed, though, just as commerce in alcohol now is. I also favor a hefty increase in education and rehab funding (although I also think we have to modify our current M.O. -- I'm highly skeptical of the "just say no approach" for instance).
Also, if, say, morphine were sold like alcohol — behind a counter and not to children — what would be an appropriate legal consequence for someone who then gave it to children anyway?
Alan:
That is what I take "legalization" to mean. If we "just say no to drug laws of all sorts,"
Well, that's not my position. Not being a libertarian, I don't have a problem with government regulation, and indeed, the impossibility of regulating black markets in my view is one of the biggest arguments against the prohibition of drugs. When we ended the prohibition of alcohol, for instance, we didn't abrogate the authority of government to regulate it. You can purchase vodka in the alcohol retail outlets of most states, but you can't typically purchase 200 proof grain alcohol in the same.
Should we bring back laudanum (anhydrous morphine)?
Maybe. This is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind. Or maybe opium. Or maybe indeed heroin. I think there are likely some substances that are sufficiently dangerous to warrant continued prohibition. Still others that might warrant very strict controls (the possession of a permit to purchase, say, or a requirement to imbibe on site). Still others that might warrant less strict controls (showing an ID and a willingness to talk to a health professional). It all depends. Different chemicals have different properties, and pose differing levels of risk for the average person. I don't think oversimplification - which is what we're attempting now -- works.
It used to be available without prescription at every licensed druggist in Britain until they restricted it around 1920...
It used to available without prescription in the United States, as well, although I think you have to go back further than 1920.
Were things better before then?
I'd say so, yes. While drug addiction was a serious problem in those days, it's hardly an unserious one now. And again, to repeat ad nauseaum, at least the problem in those days didn't also cause a massive increase in violent crime and a bill running into the hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for police, courts, and prisons.
Also, if, say, morphine were sold like alcohol — behind a counter and not to children — what would be an appropriate legal consequence for someone who then gave it to children anyway?
Um, I dunno, perhaps punishments similar to the ones we currently require for those convicted of giving narcotics to children. In other words, severe ones.
It looks like the Obama administration would like to decriminalize marijuana. I agree with the state option idea. Perhaps simplistically, I see the problem as dependent on the Fourth Amendment. State actors cannot ask you, e.g. at school or in the welfare office, 'because I'm mom and I say so' to submit to a drug test; so we see ourselves with decriminalization supporting a drugged lumpenproletariat. OTOH, one of the problems with drugs tests is that they seem to be interpreted with less intelligence than squirrels use faced with a street. Even people staffing treatment facilities may feel that, say, a 'positive' test for opioids means you are using heroin and not prescribed Suboxone (a heroin substitute). The UDS records a positive antibody reaction so will be positive to a variety of similar structures. The only test without a 'false positive' is marijuana; 'confirmation' based on further chemical analytic technique is required for the vast majority of 'positives.' "Negative' is a little bit like not being denounced in the time of Stalin. You went with the program almost no doubt, but the denounced may also be innocent.