Almost no one thinks the “war on drugs” has been any more effective than Prohibition was. However, the damage done by drug abuse is so great that it’s hard to embrace the idea that just because something is wrong does not mean it should be illegal.
Yet, as [shown by the legalization of marijuana] in Colorado and Washington State, increasing numbers – Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians – have come to realize that it would be better to treat at least marijuana, and possibly other illegal drugs, more like tobacco and alcohol.
We need to get the pushers and gangsters out of the drug business. We need to stop giving pushers a financial incentive to turn others into addicts. And we need to stop making gangsters rich (and powerful).
Ending the “war on drugs” could have a huge (beneficial) impact on people’s lives, reducing crime, reducing prison populations (and thereby reducing the number of lives ruined), and reducing government deficits.
Alternatively, a much more practical punishment for illegal drug use would be drivers’ license suspensions. Forced to find a new way to get to work or forced to find a new job, more drug users might realize they have a problem and get help.
(The above is a slightly updated version of a “Letter to the Editor” of mine published 11/25/12 in the Rockford (IL) Register Star.)
The goal of public policy should be to minimize the damage done by human vices. The legal prohibition and consequent “war on drugs” creates the illegal drug trade. And the collateral damage – the violence, bloodshed and corruption – of that trade is horrendous (notably in Mexico and Central America).
Of course, legalization would not turn hardened criminals into model citizens. They would turn to other (less profitable) crimes. But, eliminate the primary source of income for the drug cartels and they become smaller, less powerful, businesses that hire and employ fewer and fewer criminals.
One major goal of legalization is to get rid of the pushers. The primary danger is that, unless we are careful, legal dealers might become pushers in much the same way that state and local governments now promote that once illegal vice, gambling, as cure for their fiscal ills.
The illegal drug trade, like “blood” diamonds and ivory, also finances terrorism. (Oil revenue finances bad governments around the world – in the Mideast, of course, but also in Russia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, etc.)