The Economist has a wonderful editorial this week about legalizing drugs. I wholeheartedly agree that the world will be better off by far if the United States legalized, taxed, and regulated illicit drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, and heroin.
The goods that will come from legalization:
1. We will save the $40 billion the US spends trying to eliminate the supply of drugs.
2. We will save the costs involved in incarcerating so many drug offenders (as well as gain their productivity in society).
3. We will gain money through taxation on the legal drug trade.
4. Legalized drugs will be regulated, and thus purer and safer to take.
5. With all these savings, we will have lots of money to spend on treating drug addiction as a public health issue rather than as a law and order issue. We will have lots of money to fund treatment programs for addicts that are ensnared by the easier availability of drugs.
6. We will prevent tens of thousands of killings in countries that produce drugs when proceeds of drug production go to national governments instead of mafias.
The down side:
1. Drug use will probably increase, as will drug addiction. This is ameliorated by points 4 and 5 above, though: drugs would be more easily available, but they would be safer to take, and treatment for addicts would be stronger and more readily available.
Just look at how successful the government has been through taxation, regulation, and education on reducing tobacco use in the country. Contrast that with how ineffectual prohibition has been in reducing illicit drug use. It seems like such a logical thing to do! Why are people so opposed?
I know why people are so against this: the fundamental belief people have that they can and should be able to control other people, and the world around them. We are always surprised, angry, and often in denial when our attempts to control others fail (as they almost inevitably do).
ReplyDelete-tophe
We should also legalize sex with young boys. After all, people are going to just do it anyways.
ReplyDeleteAt Tophe: The article also mentioned "liberal principle" as an argument for legalizing, which is in the spirit of the point you make: if an adult makes a conscious, informed decision to take a course of action that makes them happy without harming others, society should let them do it rather than branding it as immoral.
ReplyDeleteAt Jack: Sex with young boys, on the other hand, victimizes the boys. Similarly, prostitution victimizes the young women drawn into a demoralizing task by the promise of easy money. Drug use itself is mostly a victimless crime (though a small percentage of drug users are addicts in need of help, which should be provided).
Jackflak,
ReplyDeleteThese are not parallel issues. Sex with a child involves another person who is not intellectually or emotionally mature enough to give informed consent. The "relationship" is almost always coercive and/or abusive.
Drug use is an individual choice. That choice *can* lead to "collateral damage", e.g., families who suffer for one member's addiction, the societal impact of drug abuse, etc. But those results are not the inevitable outcome of drug use.
It is ridiculous to me that drinking yeast pee and smoking a nightshade-related plant are totally legal activities, but consuming cannabis is not. From either a toxicological or pharmacological perspective, the first two activities are far more dangerous. Meanwhile, merely cultivating hemp for fiber or oil is illegal in the US.
but what would my husband do for work if we legalize these drugs??!!
ReplyDeleteSince I've got libertarian leanings, I'm all in favor of decriminalizing drugs. But, I can imagine why people would be opposed. Right now, I can fairly easily avoid the druggies. If drugs were made legal, it would make it much more likely that I would come into contact with a scary drug addict. Who among us wants a stoner breaking into their house in the middle of the night screaming "METH!!! METH!!!"?
ReplyDeleteDrug use is never a victimless crime. The rest of society pays for it one way or another, in the form of lost productivity, medical costs, law enforcement, crime, and so on.
ReplyDeleteIt is in society's best interest to try to make sure that people do not do drugs.
Hmm. Caffeine is probably the most widely consumed legal psychoactive substance. Is caffeine use an unalloyed detriment to society? Let's take a look at productivity after taking away everyone's morning Starbucks.
ReplyDeleteCannabis can be used to relieve nausea and loss of appetite---symptoms of chemotherapy and several chronic diseases. Is society really better off keeping these people from maintaining a healthy weight?
No one's arguing that drug *ab*use doesn't have serious individual and societal costs, regardless of legality. The argument is that those costs (and the costs incurred by illicit production) may be better managed by regulation rather than outright criminalization.
Jack suggests society will suffer if drugs are legalized due to "lost productivity, medical costs, law enforcement, and crime." I believe productivity will increase because the number of minor drug offenders released form prison will outweigh the handful of additional addicts. Medical costs may be a wash when you remove the current medical burden of sharing needles to use unpure drugs. Law enforcement would probably decrease because of a small increase in drug use cannot approach the law enforcement the US currently spends on reducing the illegal drug trade. And crime would certainly decrease (by definition) if you decriminalized drug use. Studies estimate that 19,000 deaths in the US are due to drug addiciton. Even if that number doubled (which seems highly unlikely to me), it would only equal the number of drug-related deaths at the hands of mafias in producer countries like Mexico, Columbia, and Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteThe estimation of 19,000 deaths per year in the US is from a Mayo Clinic study that I couldn't find a proper reference for. This site has references and suggests the annual toll is 17,000 direct and indirect deaths due to illicit drugs, as compared to 520,000 due to tobacco and alcohol: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30
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