Regulated drug use

I have been asked to give an explanation of what I mean when I use the term "regulated" in reference to currently illegal drugs.

My contention is that a system other than prohibition would be more effective at reducing the number of people who use drugs. The immediate goal of the system would be to drastically reduce the number of young people using drugs as fast as possible and over the long term, to reduce overall drug use. To do this, I would morph the system we have now to intelligently attack drug use with an education and healthcare approach. Most importantly, the system would be responsive to scientific study and evidence rather than under the purvey of politicians.

To start with, all non-prescription psychoactive drugs would be classified with a rating scale that marks drugs according to scientific measurements like their potential for misuse and abuse as well as health consequences like physical and psychological addiction and societal damage. Where a drug stood on the scale would determine at what age one could purchase the substance or under what circumstances the substance could be prescribed by a doctor.

Six months before the person is of the age of consent for a substance, they must go to classes to learn about the drug. Tobacco would be first and I think that honest education about what tobacco does to you is one of the most powerful deterrents. In addition, you can teach about the signs of addiction and introduce solutions for those addictions before a person is even licensed to purchase. Once a person is licensed, they can purchase that substance in the amounts generally approved as personal use (also tied to the scientific rating scale mentioned above). If a person, fully armed with the facts about tobacco or alcohol or any other drug, chooses to ingest it, at least they have signed waivers absolving legal responsibility from the distribution system. In theory, you could prove to people the effects by putting them on a test track after a couple of drinks or videotape them in a bar situation to show them how their behavior changes. Education reduces drug use.

The purchasing history would be sifted through a computer programmed to identify probable cases of misuse or abuse. Once identified, a person can be flagged for an interview by healthcare professionals at their next purchase. Help can be offered to the person but should not become mandatory unless the person commits a crime related to or while on drugs. We let the criminal justice system take care of criminals and let healthcare professionals deal with the sickos. The purchasing history would not be made available to police unless someone is indicted for a crime. Even then, the prosecutor should have to prove that there is reasonable suspicion that drug use might have contributed to the crime.

We would more closely track purchasing and usage by embedding RFID tags in each container. Every pack of smokes, every can of beer, every bag of pot is tagged with the ID of the person that purchased it. If a minor turns up with something, we will know who purchased it and will be able to trace it back to the person who gave it to them. First offense, warning. Second offense a year. Third offense, five years. Fourth offense, ten years. MIP would become a thing of the past. In addition, we now have the ability to create and track drugs that have a chemical signature. Every batch of every drug could be given a slightly different signature to give us the ability to track any stash back to its origin.

Over the long term, we continue scientific study to find out the best ways to reduce usage. Some advertising could be effective, but we need to study to find out what actually works. As it is, there is no accurate measurement of drug use in this country because it all happens in the underground. If use is regulated, we can find out what works and eventually have a major impact on overall rates of use. The initial impact would be on minors.

I would keep drug prices just a bit lower than they are now (10% or so), but regulate the production and packaging in order to make sure that the customer knows exactly what they are purchasing. The government negotiates with producer states to buy enough to support our demand every year or turns the production over to private businesses under strict regulation. Everything over the production cost becomes the tax to pay for the regulatory system, the treatment facilities, the educational curriculum (to be administered by colleges), and the exess funds could be used to pay for prescription drugs for the elderly. Why shouldn't those idiots pay for grandma's medication or a tax cut?

Police officers should be able to walk through any street in the country and know that 99% of the people in the neighborhood respect them and all of the laws they represent. With a regulated system, police officers could stop being "punitive officers" in favor of rediscovering the term "peace officers." With today's forensic abilities, imagine the percentage of actual criminals we could catch if people who use drugs felt like they could come forth.

We could reclaim some expensive jail cells and make sure that they are reserved for the violent, predatory criminals who deserve to be there. Lower security prisons could be converted to drug treatment facilities, which would help to offset jobs lost by the prison closure.

There are so many side benefits to this type of system that it is hard to write about them all, but here is a list:

Industrial hemp could replace farm subsidies.
HIV and Hepatitis epidemics could be very closely contained among injection drug users.
We could extricate ourselves from the civil war in Columbia.
Drug overdoses and deaths related to drug use could be minimized.
Drug use and exposure in pregnancies could be closely monitored.
Organized crime in America alone would be out nearly $60 billion per year.
The corruption caused by drug prohibition would be minimized.
Many of our civil rights would be restored.
The violence bred by prohibition would be a thing of the past.

I admit that it will be hard work. I also admit that mistakes will be made. The sad truth is that it is not really a question of if some currently illegal drugs will become regulated like alcohol and tobacco, but when. We have to find an intelligent, economically manageable, socially just way to deal with this problem. We have stuck our heads in the sand for nearly a century on this, it is time to do the right thing for our children.

We can reduce drug use and abuse, it will be a difficult task, but nobody thought we could get to the moon in a decade, either. We are supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, we need to start acting like it.

 

Personally, I am against prohibiting anything that does not have a clear victim. Gambling, sex, drugs, etc. should all be highly regulated because of the dangers involved. I have never paid for a prostitute, but would be much happier if the industry were regulated to cut down on disease, abuse by the underworld, and a way out once they want it. I enjoy gambling occasionally (we were in Las Vegas last week, I will post some reasonably sized jpegs soon) and believe that there should be more done to help the millions with gambling problems.

Regulation works as a model. Prohibition fails.

 

Difference is that the data is not seen by law enforcement, it is seen by healthcare professionals and even then only if the computer flags your recent purchases as being excessive. If this happens, you have a short talk with a doctor the next time you buy beer and that is that.

I don't see any reason to track the brand, but amount and date would be tracked, yes. The most important tracking, however is your ID imprinted on the can of beer you purchased, allowing us to track it to the person who provides it to kids.

 

I would personally be against providing free anything as a central part of this strategy is to have drug users provide all of the tax monies necessary to support the regulated system including the treatment center the crack user will almost certainly need at some point.

 

I agree that parents should be the ones that educate CHILDREN as to the effects of drug use and abuse. Once that child becomes an adult, however, the system makes sure that the person is educated before they are allowed to purchase some of the most dangerous chemicals in existance. That education alone will be enough to convince most people not to use said chemicals.

The system I have described is considerably less invasive than the current one.

 

I see your point. This is actually a different kind of tracking. The container itself (through the use of an RFID tag) is tagged with the ID of the person who bought it at the time of purchase so if a minor is caught with the beer, smokes, or whatever, it can be traced back to the person who purchased it. The police would not be accessing the historical data in the database, but rather would be tracking the specific person who bought that container.

 

Thank you. I have put a lot of thought (a decade and a half worth) into this. There will always be problems with the most dangerous chemicals in existence, we just need to find the best way to minimize those problems.

The stigma of being illegal is nowhere near as important as the stigma of being socially unacceptable. Smoking has been reduced drastically because people are starting to see it as the disgusting habit it is. In addition, drug use would not be legal in public, but it would be a ticketable (as opposed to arrestable) offense.

Education on its own is not what I am advocating, we will use education in conjunction with strong treatment options. When we find someone who might be developing a problem, we will give them the option of treatment. Education along with treatment and a change in social acceptability will all work together to reduce drug use.

If we severely limit the number of young people who can acquire drugs, education will be much more effective when they take classes as adults rather than making decisions about drug use at 11, 12, or 13 years of age. Kids do not have the capacity to make intelligent choices about drug use, but in a black market they are forced to make those decisions at a very young age. I remember very clearly having friends who smoked pot in 4th grade.

If they want more drugs than the regs allow, they will eventually be approached by doctors and family who will urge them to get help. Our education program will also teach people that if someone asks one to buy for someone else, it is a sign of abuse or addiction and that this person needs help, not more drugs.

The key here is eliminating the $60 billion we give to organized crime every year in this country. If we are able to cut that out, there will be very little reason to circumvent the rules (as we saw after alcohol prohibition).

IMO, this will be the second biggest benefit of regulating drug use (right behind reducing the number of young people using drugs). The police can stop worrying about what is going on between consenting adults behind closed doors and can instead focus on people who rob, steal, con, rape, assault, and murder.

It is sad that the police today are forced to chase pot smokers when they could be going after people who are committing things that virtually everyone agrees should be crimes. My neighbor had her purse stolen a year or so ago and the person who stole it racked up $2000 in credit card charges before she got home and reported her card missing. The police never even went after the perpetrator because they didn't have the manpower.

For some people, it already is routine to do that. The thing is that we invite a whole host of other problems when prohibition is the model. If some moron (an adult who is fully educated on the effects of the drug) wants to go home and inject themselves, they will do it whether it is legal or illegal. Making drugs illegal simply makes it more difficult to identify and treat the people who do have problems with those drugs.

A drug free culture is already laughable, given the statistics. Half of our young people use illegal drugs before they leave high school. Why don't we try for a drug free high school system first, then worry about the adults?

Let me ask y'all something. Will you feel any differently about a heroin junkie just because heroin is legal? I won't, I will still feel like said person is one who has made some unbelievably bad choices to get themselves hooked on such a dangerous chemical. I will still see crackheads as self absorbed morons who are willing to overlook everything in favor of their next fix. The difference is that we will be able to deal with the resulting socail problems more efficiently and more economically with a regulated model.

 

Not when the drug war is being fought by healthcare professionals and scientists. It is hard to be heavy handed when it is not the force of the criminal justice system behind the policy.

Besides, the problem we have now is the lack of regulations in regards to drugs. We don't have any idea how much of any illicit drug is used, by what kinds of people, and what the effects really are. We are totally in the dark because our drug policy does not allow us to find intelligent ways to treat the problems inherent in drug use.

I personally agree with you. You have to admit, though that there are certain problems that are simply a part of drug use in a society. You have to recognize that government does have a place when it comes to drug use, though not YOUR SPECIFIC drug use. There are certain societal consequences that go along with drug use in a society and it is the government's place to see that those consequences are mitigated.

I believe that regulating drugs and ending the practice of poisoning and criminalizing latin american growers will help civil liberties overseas. I also agree that ending asset forfeture and the practice of incarcerating drug users will help to secure our civil liberties at home. The DEA would have its place, in a morphed form, but would be a healthcare agency rather than a criminal justice agency.

I want to end the practice of the government controlling what we put in our bodies. I just want to make sure that if someone decides to put something in their body that they are:

First and foremost of sufficient age to make an adult decision and sign legal documents.
Educated fully as to the effects of the drug they are purchasing.
Buying a product free of as many adulterants and poisons as possible.

You're not the only one that studies.

 

A friend and I were talking about this last night and we agreed that in order for this kind of system to work, the licensing process would need to be anonymous. The only way to track someone's specific drug purchases would be if the drug ended up in the hands of a minor. Even then, the prosecutor should have to jump through some hoops to get the information. Maybe instead of being tied to a name, the ID card could be tied to a biometric like a fingerprint or retina scan. Then, it would be impossible to associate a name to a drug purchase ID unless you had a court order and access to the fingerprint database.

How would you balance civil liberties versus societal interest?