As many of you know, Rep Trey Radel (R-Um, where am I? I'm stoned) was caught with cocaine. He took a "leave of absence" from Congress. That means he keeps getting a salary (although he has said he will give it to charity). He wasn't cuffed. He wasn't tasered. He won't be going to jail.
It's easy and fun to mock Radel and the miscarriage of justice being done. I have done some of this myself, here and on Twitter.
But can we gain something serious from Radel's situation?
I think we can.
More below the fold
My idea is simple: Let's treat everyone caught with drugs the way Radel got treated:
No cuffs
No tasers.
No jail time.
No job loss.
Treatment, as needed.
Because if there's one thing that's clear from the last century or so of drug policy it's that the war on drugs doesn't work. It doesn't deter people (e.g. Project DARE was found to actually increase the use of drugs. The director said "I'm not saying it's effective, but it's state of the art"). It doesn't make drugs unavailable. It does make drugs more dangerous (because you don't know what you're getting).
Let's go a step further:
What if we treated all drugs the way we treat booze?
Now, certainly, abuse of alcohol can cause problems.
But you don't have to shoot up alcohol in hiding for fear of getting caught. And if you buy a fifth of vodka, you can be fairly sure that it is the proof it says on the label. And you can get treatment much more easily than you can for drugs. And, instead of spending billions on enforcement, we gain billions in tax revenue. And we don't have any cartels making billions selling alcohol illegally. Whatever you may think of Seagram's (or whomever) they don't shoot people and they haven't created a narco-state (although they were well on their way during prohibition).
I am not saying all drugs are safe. They aren't. I am saying that they would be safer if they were legal and regulated than they are now.
What we are doing isn't working. It's time (and long past time) to try something else.