I know, TL;DR... 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 metrics 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. Before the person is licensed to purchase 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. Responsible drug users (the VAST majority) wouldn't have to see either type of professional. 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 excess funds could be used to pay for prescription drugs for the elderly. Why shouldn't recreational drug users pay for grandma's Medicare Part D? 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 short 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. **(not as much an issue as when I originally wrote about this) 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.
