I remember Leonard, a man I worked with thirty-plus years ago. He was a crusty old fuck whose rugged experience made him not only interesting, but practically a sage. In a discussion relating to casinos and brothels in Nevada, he once said to me, “There are two things that people are going to do, and you can’t stop them — they’re going to gamble, and they’re going to screw.”
True words. Add to that drinking and smoking dope.
You would think that America would have learned its lesson from the Roaring Twenties, when alcohol was banned and bootleggers became millionaires by supplying a demand that would not go away. The 18th Amendment was a failure from start to finish, and finally became extinct. But the lesson was, apparently, lost. The prohibition of illegal drugs is as hopelessly stupid as the prohibition of alcohol.
Definition of Insanity
Banning recreational drugs is simply a bad idea, an idea that can never work. As long as people demand a substance, suppliers will always feed that demand. It’s time to realize that the “war on drugs” can never be won, and is far more damaging to America than, say, the war in Iraq.
The argument applies equally to all illegal drugs, but taking marijuana as an example, the case can easily be made. It has been reported that marijuana alone is the single largest cash crop in California. Police agencies spend millions annually in a futile attempt to stamp out the production of weed, yet the stuff remains our number one revenue generator. Not only that, but millions more are spent housing people in prison who have done nothing more egregious than simply possessing the stuff. What do you think would happen if pot suddenly became legal in California?
Setting aside for a moment the complications of the federal ban, here is one possible scenario: California could release all the felons currently incarcerated for using and selling (assuming they had no other convictions requiring them to remain behind bars) and thereby cut the statewide prison budget by perhaps as much as fifty percent. Those released prisoners could merge back into the work force and begin producing for the economy.
But– But–
Well, but many of them would simply go back to selling drugs, wouldn’t they? Probably not, because the next order of business would be to make drugs available for sale to adults at a reasonable price. Add the customary “sin tax” to the substance and California’s budget crisis would turn into a surplus overnight. Police could go back to looking for real criminals, the violent ones, and the court calendars would be streamlined.
Once a drug became legal, the violence surrounding its manufacture and sale would largely go away. If, for example, cocaine were legal and cheaply available over the counter, the drug cartels of South America would no longer be able to compete. They would have to shift their market elsewhere, or take a lesser profit by selling to legitimate U.S. companies that package and sell the product. Addicts who support their habits by burglary would no longer need to do so, since the price would drop dramatically. There might be a sharp drop in prostitution, since many hookers only work the streets to support a habit that is too expensive to pay for any other way. Think of the girls whose lives might be saved if they didn’t have to work in such a dangerous environment.
The downside might be that kids could easily get their hands on some drugs, but they already can (most parents don’t have a clue where drugs are sold, but most kids know exactly where to go). People might drive while stoned or high, but they already do. Selling to minors would remain illegal, just as selling alcohol and tobacco to minors is illegal. Driving under the influence would remain illegal. So what would have changed?
The only logical reason for banning drugs is that someone, somewhere, at some time, decided that using them isn’t good for us, or is somehow immoral, and decided to enforce their sense of morality on everyone else. That kind of governmental interference should not be tolerated, ever. Prohibition was forced onto us by religious zealots, and the current prohibition is no better. In a free society, people should have the right to do something even if it isn’t good for them. That’s what freedom of choice is all about.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but as a taxpayer, I’d much rather see my money spent on fighting crime than fighting drugs. Legalizing drugs would make the streets much safer for my family and yours. We need to pay attention to the lessons of history.
Prohibition (still) doesn’t work.
—August 19, 2008
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Private Thoughts 