http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-sullum-stimson25apr25,0,896013.story
By Jacob Sullum
The ideal drug policy would apply to the currently illegal intoxicants
the same distinctions we routinely apply to alcohol: between children
and adults, between use and abuse, between abuse that harms only the
user and abuse that harms others.
Selling drugs to minors should remain illegal. But adults should be
free to decide for themselves what goes into their bodies, provided
they do not violate anyone else's rights in the process.
Under such a policy, some people would use currently illegal drugs to
excess, just as some people use alcohol to excess. But judging from
history, current patterns of alcohol consumption and data on illegal
drug use, the vast majority would not.
Until 1914, opiates, cocaine and cannabis were readily and legally
available in the United States over the counter and by mail order.
They were incor****ated into a wide variety of medicines, tonics and
popular beverages. Yet even the highest estimates of addiction in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, offered by people making the case
for prohibition, indicate that heavy users represented less than 1% of
the population.
In the case of alcohol, moderation is the rule. About 10% of those who
have consumed at least one drink in the last year qualify as "heavy
users," meaning they've had five or more drinks on the same occasion
on each of five or more days in the last month. The government's own
survey data indicate that what's true of alcohol is also true of
marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and even heroin: The vast majority
of people who try these drugs do not become addicts. In a legal
market, the rate of addiction among users would be, if anything,
lower, because the people who are most prone to addiction are probably
the ones who are least deterred by prohibition. And before you imagine
Americans flocking to crack and heroin the moment prohibition is
repealed, consider the fact that these are distinctly minority tastes
even among illegal drug users, who overwhelmingly prefer marijuana.
Cully, in your first post you accused me of sidestepping "the issue of
morality," so let me be explicit. Psychoactive substances are not
inherently good or evil; the morality of drug use depends on how the
drug is used, for what purpose and in what context. Unwinding at the
end of the day or on the weekend by smoking a little marijuana, for
example, is morally indistinguishable from doing the same thing with
beer, wine or liquor.
Your parade of horror stories, featuring a president high on heroin
during a national crisis, meth-addicted child abusers and stoned
school bus drivers, obscures the crucial distinction between use and
abuse. We could just as easily have a president who is drunk during a
national crisis, an alcoholic who beats his kids or an inebriated bus
driver. There are ways to deal with such situations that do not
require general prohibition. If a drunk wrecks his personal
relation****ps, he pays a social cost; if he screws up at work, he may
lose his job; if he assaults someone or endangers others by driving
while intoxicated, he can be arrested. But unless his conduct rises to
the level of a crime or tort, the law leaves him alone.
The anecdote about your friend "Bob," the lawyer whose alcohol abuse
jeopardized his career, family and health but who "got professional
help" and is now "a world-class advocate, father and husband,"
sup****ts my argument. Would Bob have been better off if he had been
arrested for alcohol possession and treated like a criminal?
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
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