Posted by Jonathan Adler:
"Drugs Have Won":
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1244989919
The NYT's Nicholas Kristof [1]joins the ranks of those urging an end
to the drug war. The War on drugs, Kristof notes, has had three
consequences: 1) "we have vastly increased the proportion of our
population in prisons"; 2) "we have empowered criminals at home and
terrorists abroad"; and 3) "we have squandered resources." Writes
Kristof, "if our aim is to reduce the influence of harmful drugs, we
can do better."
Kristof notes that the available empirical evidence suggests that
decriminalization would not produce a dramatic increase in drug
consumption. Still, there is significant uncertainty. He puts forward
an interesting proposal:
Moving forward, we need to be less ideological and more empirical
in figuring out what works in combating America�s drug problem. One
approach would be for a state or two to experiment with
legalization of marijuana, allowing it to be sold by licensed
pharmacists, while measuring the impact on usage and crime.
A related idea, put forward some years back in the book [2]Undoing
Drugs: Beyond Legalization, would be for the federal government to
treat more drugs like alcohol, leaving states to set specific drug
policies but making it a federal crime to transport drugs into a state
in violation of that state's laws. For most of the country, for most
drugs, this would mean no change (at least not in the near term). But
it would enable those states that are so inclined to experiment with
marijuana decriminalization and other drug policy reforms, and such
experiments would inform the broader debate over drug policy.
References
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14kristof.html
2.
http://www.amazon.com/Undoing-Drugs-Legalization-Daniel-Benjamin/dp/0465088546
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