The USA has no rational way of deciding
which drugs are legal and which are illegal.
I propose that a drug should be illegal if:
It makes people dangerous to others or themselves, or
People can't "function" reasonably even when not using it, or
It damages people's health severely, or
It is so addictive that people quickly lose their
ability to control their use of it.
Whether kids should have access to each drug is a separate issue.
We don't outlaw alcohol and tobacco for adults, although so
many kids use and abuse them. So we shouldn't necessarily outlaw
drug X for adults, just because kids might use and abuse it.
We don't outlaw prescription drugs because some are misused; we
control them.
As far as I know, no one has proven that using one drug "leads to" using another.
The government desperately wants to prove this for some drugs; they'd be
waving the evidence in our faces if it existed. The best they've
been able to come up with is that the "lifestyle" of taking
one drug is associated with using others. That logic probably indicates we
should ban alcohol and cigarettes; illegal drug users often use them too.
All Hell's Angels started out on bicycles; should we outlaw bicycles ?
By the criteria I propose above (dangerous, damaging and/or very addictive),
perhaps these drugs should be illegal:
Alcohol: 40,000 alcohol-related driving deaths per year in USA.
More deaths due to fights in bars, domestic homicides with
an alcohol factor, non-driving accidents, suicides, etc.
Long-term death due to health damage.
Damage to fetuses.
Heroin: almost immediately addictive (I think).
Overdose causes death. Damage to fetuses.
Methamphetamine: very addictive (I think).
Lots of damage to brain, teeth, etc (although maybe that is true
only of shoddily-made meth). Very dangerous manufacturing process.
Crack cocaine: very addictive, damaging.
PCP: very damaging.
By those criteria, perhaps these drugs should be legal (all are addictive, but don't make
people overly dangerous to others or themselves, don't cause immediate severe damage):
Caffeine (works
same way that cocaine and heroin do).
Tobacco.
Marijuana.
Amphetamines (when properly manufactured).
Barbituates.
Cocaine (works same way that caffeine and heroin do).
I could well be wrong about specific drugs; I'm no expert.
But am I wrong about the policy aspect of it ?
By "legal", I mean that it should have the same status we give to alcohol and tobacco today:
no sales to minors, no driving under the influence, and we recognize that excessive use
is bad for you.
Legalizing drugs such as marijuana and cocaine would have these benefits:
Government regulation of purity, avoiding many health risks and overdose deaths.
Production by legal, taxable companies instead of drug cartels and national-park-growers
and meth-labs, removing production hazards to innocent bystanders, and impurities and fraud.
Distribution by legal, taxable companies instead of drug cartels and pushers,
taking huge profits out of the hands of gangs and cartels.
Personal safety of consumers while buying drugs.
Freeing up law enforcement resources to focus on serious crimes and drugs,
instead of clogging our courts and prisons with marijuana offenders.
Price of marijuana would fall dramatically, so many people would use
marijuana instead of more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine.
From 6/17/2007 issue of New York Times magazine section:
"... physical dependence is not the same thing as addiction.
Addiction - which is defined by cravings, loss of control and a psychological compulsion
to take a drug even when it is harmful - ..."
The government should finance development of a legal drug to drive cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine out of business. The legal drug should provide a peaceful high and then
a deep sleep, have no health side-effects, and be cheap.