"M_P" <m_p@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:029f41b6-5ce0-46f3-b0b5-2354934090a9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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 repealed, consider the fact that these are distinctly minority tastes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
He didn't even mention the amount of money governments could collect in
taxes.
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