Maybe, just maybe for cannabis. But meth and cocaine (including crack)? I don't think you appreciate the damage those drugs cause.
The US policy on drugs is insane, but so is legalisation in a country which can't even manage to generate a proper social stigma against drink driving.
1. They don't need to do as much damage if the legal consequences associated with them are lessened, and people feel able to access help and care for their problems.
2. The money currently spent (fruitlessly) trying to suppress these things could fund one heck of a rehab program.
3. Known dosages and purities, as well as safer methods of taking the substances, could help minimise harm.
I agree that blanket legalisation is probably nuts, by the way, but I don't think it's as black and white as "meth bad, must stay illegal".
From what I remember reading recently - the results of the Portugal drug legalization program was a reduction of convictions/prosecutions for drug possesion and use.
All those people ended up going into rehab and therapy systems. So it wasn't a slam dunk result, the problem got routed to another system, albeit one more humane to handle the load.
There are other documents in the Institute's website. Most are in Portuguese, but there's some stuff in English. Check the dates on the reports, 'though, some are very outdated.
Drawing a line on what kind of drugs to legalize will invariably highlight the damage hard drugs cause. The counter argument is the sheer number of deaths caused by the high profit margins of drug trading: 50,000 in 6 years in Mexico alone.[1] When you add the financial cost of the war on drugs to this kind of death toll, it is entirely possible that the death toll from legalized drug consumption (and the violence that sometimes accompanies it) may be far less.
Very simple: Make it prescription based, perhaps even limit consumption to controlled clinics. To qualify for a prescription, you will need to be addicted (or something to that effect, IANA medical professional). As "repeat customers" disappear, the incentive to get people hooked disappear, and the current economic model collapses.
This will take care of the addicts and most of the dangerous drug related crime. There will still be a market to service casual users (ie. rich bankers) which will have to be addressed in a different manner (perhaps not at all - if the market is small enough not to sustain large, dangerous cartels, it will allow the affected countries to get on their feet and establish proper rule of law which is the primary goal).
Make it prescription based? Then you still have people buying & selling in alleys. What's the difference other than slightly increasing the supply of high quality drugs?
>> perhaps even limit consumption to controlled clinics
But even without that, the difference would be to give addicts a simple path straight out of the criminal environment - helping recovery (the proximity of your dealer and various loan sharks whose revenues depend on your habit aren't very helpful) and destroying the market.
You are basically suggesting (I think) widespread availability of drug clinics giving people methadone or the equivalent?
I think that's not a bad idea on its own, but I'm not sure it really gets at the core of drug users who really don't want to get off drugs, or don't want to be put on a schedule.
Unless perhaps you are suggesting the clinics would just be open 24x7, giving out fixes as desired, without pushing people to get clean?
Not methadone, the real thing. And only to "proven" addicts. I'm not sure what the best way to engage the addicts there is, probably not "pushing", but at least you'll know where to find them.
I'm working from the premise – which could be wrong – that the average drug addict don't particularly enjoy having to engage with gangs and crime. Thus, almost any solution that allows them to tend to their addiction without crime will be almost infinitely more attractive.
I should also mention that I'm working from a rather utilitarian perspective: I'm concerned about bringing down the external costs of the drug problem – crime, cartels – and less with "curing" the addicts.
> I don't think you appreciate the damage those drugs cause.
We do.
We've banned crack and meth and yet there are still problems.
The relevant question is whether the "profit" of banning, the benefits - the costs under banning, are higher than the "profit" of legalization, again the costs - benefits under legalization. I agree that both numbers are negative, the question is which one is closer to 0.
Meth and cocaine are pretty much universally available even though they're banned. So, how much more use (and cost) do you expect if they're legalized? That's the extra cost of legalization. In return, we lose the significant costs associated with banning, such as no-knock searches that kill the wrong people, not to mention the war on privacy. (No, you don't get to ignore that.)
Meth is relatively easy and inexpensive to make. Crrently the primary difficulty is acquiring sufficient quantities of the OTC ingredients (i.e., cough suppressant) used to make the drug.
Banning meth is paramount to combatting meth use. Meth is already a pervasive problem in rural areas now, despite its illegality. If meth use is legalized, the meth problem in this country will explode (pun intended).
> Meth is relatively easy and inexpensive to make.
Which implies that we can't do anything about its availability. Actual experience seems to agree with that theory.
> Banning meth is paramount to combatting meth use.
Huh? Even if banning meth is the most effective way to combat meth use, that doesn't imply that it has any effect on meth use. As you argued above, banning meth has had no effect on its availability.
> If meth use is legalized, the meth problem in this country will explode (pun intended).
Why? Legalizing meth can't make it more available, so how will legalizing meth increase its use?
I do - I put somebody through rehab last year. Legalize them.
I don't think a lot of people appreciate the gravity of the situation when you're trying to score heroin just to make it vaguely possible that someone can take a bus trip back to their parents to get help.
The US policy on drugs is insane, but so is legalisation in a country which can't even manage to generate a proper social stigma against drink driving.