Drug Wars

I guess this is something liberals and libertarians are supposed to agree about, but I consistently find it bizarre that there are some people who seem to think it would be a good idea if you could just walk into your local convenience store and pick up some heroin or crack along with your Fritos and Diet Coke. At times, people taking this line seem to argue that drug prohibition couldn't possibly be having any beneficial effects because, after all, you can still find heroin. Naturally enough, you don't see anyone proposing that the "war on mugging" be ended simply because mugging-prohibition has failed to actually eliminate the proscribed activity. That said, like any reasonable person I think many aspects of current crime-control and drug-control policy in the United States don't make sense. So I have a hard time knowing what to make of things like this from Jerry Taylor:

While it should be obvious to any fair-minded observer that our increasingly brutal war on drugs is a losing proposition on all counts, few of us seem to be fair minded observers. So allow me to pose a question to those of you still clinging to this benighted enterprise: Exactly what would it take to convince you that the drug war was causing more harm than good? Is there any bit of data, any hypothetical fact, or anything at all that would cause you to give up the policy ghost? Because if there is not, then we are in the realm of religious belief — and that’s about all that I can find to support this cruel, costly, and counterproductive jihad.

I mean, I'm not even clear on what question's being asked here. Do I think the status quo is preferable to total deregulation of currently prohibited drugs? I would say so. But considering how heavily regulated the use of alcohol and tobacco is, one hardly imagines that a heroin free-for-all (ads after school cartoons, for sale out of ice cream trucks) is a likely alternative policy. So, I don't know. What is the "war on drugs" exactly? Does it do more harm than good compared to what? That said, this Mike Males op-ed Taylor links to sure is interesting:

It’s time to end the obsession with hyping teenage drug use. The meaningless surveys that policy makers now rely on should be replaced with a comprehensive “drug abuse index” that pulls together largely ignored data on drug-related deaths, hospital emergencies, crime, diseases and similar practical measures. . . .

Few experts would have suspected that the biggest contributors to California’s drug abuse, death and injury toll are educated, middle-aged women living in the Central Valley and rural areas, while the fastest-declining, lowest-risk populations are urban black and Latino teenagers. Yet the index found exactly that. These are the sorts of trends we need to understand if we are to design effective policies.

I wouldn't have guessed that.

Comments

As a Baby Boomer, I'm a little dubious about Males' asertion: "For example, baby boomers rarely used illegal drugs as youths."

Contrary to Males' theory that rates of youth drug use is a poor predictor of future social problems, the sharp decline in cocaine use among black youths going back a decade or so ago is one of the best things that has happened to America in recent years.

Another interesting fact is the teenage blacks have very low rates of cigarette smoking, which bodes well for their future health.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 3, 2007 6:33 PM

I looked for Males' index, but couldn't find it at the California ADP web site (http://www.adp.cahwnet.gov/default.html). He doesn't mention where to find it in his op-ed either. Anyone know where to find it?

Posted by kwo | January 3, 2007 6:36 PM

I clicked the link hoping to find that deregulation of heroin was something more than a strawman constructed by MY, but alas.

What are the most basic, incremental changes we could propose to federal drug policy? Well, let's see. Start with getting rid of the demented federal position on medical marijuana. While we're at it, let's pretend that John Ashcroft's crusade to overrule Oregon's assisted-suicide referendum using the Controlled Substances Act never happened. Everybody with me? Good, now let's talk about the next couple baby steps.

If everyone agrees that current policy is nuts, the obvious answer is to start changing it. Let's begin with the easy cases and not get bogged down in crazy talk about buying crack in the 7-11.

Posted by Steve | January 3, 2007 6:38 PM

This post is uncharacteristically myopic, particularly with regards to your false dilemma of the status quo versus "total deregulation"/"heroin free-for-all." Given that alcohol and tobacco are, as you note, legal, widely-available, and yet highly-regulated in all sorts of ways, the response one would expect from a liberal who recognizes the destructive and arbitrary nature of the drug war would be to legalize and heavily regulate currently prohibited drugs. You'll still have an increase in the use of drugs like heroin and cocaine, but far less than the apocalypse you seem to envision, while eliminating the most destructive side-effects of prohibition - namely, a massive criminal underclass and the steady erosion of civil rights in the futile war against it. That would be a welcome improvement over the existing situation, and it's genuinely baffling to me that you don't even consider it.

Posted by Christmas | January 3, 2007 6:44 PM

Actually, you could, in 1900, walk into a drugstore and get opium or cocaine. So it has happened.

But more importantly - the argument about heroin is not that its sale shouldn't be regulated - which may entail where it can be sold, an age limit on sales, etc. - but that the Government, at the present time, has NO say on where it can be sold. Given the right grocery store, you can buy heroin there. Or, more realistically, given the right apartment - given the right schoolyard.

By banning the product, the state deprives itself of that combination of regulatory rules and incentives that allow it to exert more control on the product. My guess is that, just as you do not go to somebody's apartment to buy cigarettes or liquor, you will cease going to somebody's apartment to buy heroin. And, best of all, nobody is going to go by somebody's apartment and spray it with bullets because that is where you buy heroin.

Posted by roger | January 3, 2007 6:52 PM

Yeah, MY isn't exactly taking on a strawman here, as some uncommonly silly libertarian ideologues do, in fact, hold this view. But for liberal anti-prohibitionists, government regulation is a crucial part of the point.

Posted by djw | January 3, 2007 6:56 PM

there doesnt necessarily need to be an alternative to the drug war. some communities just put enforcement way down on the list of priorities, without actually legalizing or decriminalizing it. it does make sense to say end the drug war. you could just stop funding it.

Posted by - | January 3, 2007 6:57 PM

I consistently find it bizarre that there are some people who seem to think it would be a good idea if you could just walk into your local convenience store and pick up some heroin or crack along with your Fritos and Diet Coke.

Bizzare, yes. But Better. And also, in the 19th century Heroin and other Opioids were freely available from corner stores.

Posted by Chad Okere | January 3, 2007 6:58 PM

Imagine the looks on the faces of the gangs and mafiosi who'd find legal-but-regulated means total defunding.

Posted by Max Power | January 3, 2007 6:59 PM

Contrary to Males' theory that rates of youth drug use is a poor predictor of future social problems, the sharp decline in cocaine use among black youths going back a decade or so ago is one of the best things that has happened to America in recent years.

Another interesting fact is the teenage blacks have very low rates of cigarette smoking, which bodes well for their future health.

An assertion is not a refutation.

Posted by Chad Okere | January 3, 2007 7:00 PM

Right on, Matt. The Netherlands and Switzerland have never recovered from their free-wheeling drug policies and most of the other countries in western Europe that have largely de-criminalized drugs (although they haven't been as carefree as the Dutch and the Swiss) are positively falling apart.

Yes, indeed, the total devastation of Europe through liberalized drug policies is more than enough reason to keep throwing thousands of poor Americans in prison every year (they're often minorities anyway). Rich Americans (especially those with political connections) can usually beat the rap, so it's not like there's any REAL harm done.

What the hell happened to reality-based, dude? What have you been smoking?

Posted by Sean | January 3, 2007 7:01 PM

I understand how MY might prefer a well-regulated market for currently illegal drugs than some free-for-all. And indeed, I think most anti-drug-war people envision something like our current treatment of booze. But I can't see how total deregulation can be worse than what we've got. Right now, our police shoot 90-year-old grandmas in their homes (the old ladies' homes, not the cops').

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 7:04 PM

I had to resort to a street dealer the other day to buy Sudafed. He offered me some smack too, telling me it would help take the edge off the Sudafed.

Now I'm a full-blown junkie, but at least I've got a reliable source for when I need to clear my sinuses.

Posted by Petey | January 3, 2007 7:08 PM

Comparing the War On Drugs with a "war on mugging" is like comparing masturbation with rape. The key idea is that the government goes after a victimless crime. The war on drugs has cost much $$$, many civil liberties, and lives, and yet it has almost no effect on the end user. I can walk out my door and obtain any drug within 15 minutes. The biggest risks involved in such a transaction are there because the government has aggressively criminalized both the transaction and the use.

Posted by shecky | January 3, 2007 7:13 PM

Yeah, MY isn't exactly taking on a strawman here, as some uncommonly silly libertarian ideologues do, in fact, hold this view.

Yeah, but just because the point is raised by a libertarian doesn't mean you have to pretend the libertarian position is the only position out there. And Matt demonstrates that he's perfectly aware of this when he alludes to current alcohol and tobacco policy. Again, this is a pretty uncharacteristic post, in much the same vein as Matt's old knee-jerk "fuck the planet" environmental policy posts - not just because they both go against left-liberal conventional wisdom, but because they both smack of intellectual laziness.

Posted by Christmas | January 3, 2007 7:22 PM

What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

The Stones...know woman.

Posted by alphie | January 3, 2007 7:33 PM

Steve S,

Cocaine, and crack cocaine specifically, was/is an unusually destructuve drug, so I don't know that one can generalize from it to other drugs.

Interstingly enough, whiel I'm not an expert, my understanding is that the decrease in crack cocaine use was mainly demand side, and not the result of law enforcement. Poor kids growing up saw how destructive it was and, well, just said no.

Regarding the other posts, yes, I'd agree that Matt is being a bit obtuse here.

That being said, IMO complete decriminalization and deregulation most likely would be preferable to the status quo, not that I favor such an extreme approach, nor is such an appraoch remotely in the realm of the possible. TAny realistic moves in that direction would, I think, create a huge net benefit to our society.

Posted by Larry M | January 3, 2007 7:35 PM

Christmas--agreed on all counts.

Posted by djw | January 3, 2007 7:36 PM

So it's totally insane for the government to permit people to choose what they put into their bodies, but not for them to permit people to, oh, I don't know, jump out of planes, drive 200 mph around a track, bungee jump or wrestle alligators. Because, you know. The government is so good at protecting people from themselves.

Posted by Freddie | January 3, 2007 7:37 PM

Opiates have been legalized to the extent that if you are a heroin junkie, you can get methadone, although under really depressing, humiliating circumstances.

Is that what libertarians want for cocaine? Or do they want to be able to buy it like they buy vodka and cigarettes? Do they want for-profit companies to be able to sell it? To _market_ it everywhere other than on broadcast TV and radio?

With the possible exception of the Indians of the Altiplano, humans have not evolved _any_ defenses against abusing cocaine.

In contrast, Italians and Jews, whose ancestors have drinking for 10,000 years can handle alcohol quite well. Presumably, their ancestors who couldn't deal with drinking in moderation died out and the ones who could left more of their genes behind to carry one. Most northern Europeans and Africans, whose ancestors obtained alcohol more recently, have a fighting chance against not letting it destroy their lives.

In contrast, aboriginal peoples whose ancestors didn't come into contact with alcohol until just a few generations ago, such as American Indians, Eskimos, Australian aborigines, are absolutely brutalized by alcohol abuse.

You should read up on Inuit and Aboriginal communities to see what a drug for which you don't have an evolved defense can do to human beings.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 3, 2007 7:38 PM

War on Drugs = War on Marijuana

Posted by Gerard | January 3, 2007 7:43 PM

calvin has noticed that since "we" have been fighting the WoT, we haven't had time to fight the War on Drugs. In fact, thanks to our great work in Afghanistan, the quality of heroin has gone up remarkably. And, the farmers are making more money. Folks in the US who are using the stuff can't believe that the shit is that good and are dying from ODs.

Hey, let's just declare victory and withdraw. Make drugs legal. Get the government involved and eliminate the profit motive. It's been tried in other countries with greater success than the status quo. It won't eliminate all the problems, but it should significantly reduce the prison population and the amount of tax dollars needed to support that black hole.

Posted by calvinthecat | January 3, 2007 7:46 PM

I guess this is something liberals and libertarians are supposed to agree about, but I consistently find it bizarre that there are some people who seem to think it would be a good idea if you could just walk into your local convenience store and pick up some heroin or crack along with your Fritos and Diet Coke.

You find this bizarre? Really? I don't find it bizarre because I suspect the number of people who think this would be a good idea is vanishingly small.

I do think many there are lots of people who think prohibition mostly doesn't pass cost/benefit analysis. These people tend to think that a policy of education/taxation/regulation is far preferable in most cases to prohibition. So, it's prohibition vs. controlled distribution rather than prohibition vs. complete free for all. Most so-called libertarians I've talked to don't want heroin at Wal-Mart. They may think it ought to be sold by tightly regulated vendors, probably on a prescription basis.

Posted by Jasper | January 3, 2007 7:55 PM

Excellent point Freddie.

As for the "war on mugging" quip from MY: Why mugging? Why not shoot the moon and go with "war on murder" or "war on genocide" or something even more reprehensible?

Posted by Sam Rodgers | January 3, 2007 7:55 PM

Well, drugs should be illegal because drugs are illegal. An inspiring defense of the status quo, brought to you courtesy of the prison construction and heavy urban firearms industries.

Are you sure you've been watching The Wire? From the beginning?

Posted by norbizness | January 3, 2007 8:08 PM

I just find it particularly amusing that you used the walking into the store and buying heroin bit, since Heroin is actually a brand named owned by Bayer, for a product that you used to be able to walk into the store and buy.

Posted by Tymothi Loving | January 3, 2007 8:27 PM

Formerly, all private tragedies were not seen as needing the government's purview. Drug addiction was one of them. If you wanted to be addicted, you could be. The government simply didn't care. Addiction was a problem, but a private one.

Using a small portion of the government funds currently devoted to jailing drug to help people who don't want to be addicted seems like a better use of money and more humane. But that's just me.

Jailing non-violent people seems idiotic and cruel.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 3, 2007 8:47 PM

So we're all agreed that Matt was smoking the crack before he wrote this?

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 9:13 PM

Wow, this is the worst post here since the broo-sketta post of a few years back. The straw man, the deliberate misstating of the de-reg argument...perfect!

Posted by Trent | January 3, 2007 9:24 PM

A few libertarian extremists favor total legalization, but this is an insignificant minority position. Most of the time, when people talk about drug law reform, they're talking specifically about decriminalizing marijuana (or at least lessening the penalties and/or permitting medicinal use) and increased use of treatment rather than prison for hard drug use. Is this really so unreasonable? It's similar to what is already the norm in much of Europe.

Although it would be politically difficult, I think that legalization and regulation of marijuana would be good policy. It's not considerably more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco (indeed, a good case could be made that both of those substances are far more deadly), and locking people up in prison for marijuana-related offenses cannot be justified on either a moral basis or a cost-benefit analysis. Furthermore, a good system of taxation (high, but just low enough to suppress black market activity) could be a nice new source of sorely-needed federal revenue.

As for hard drugs like crack and crystal meth, they cannot simply be legalized, but our current system - under which users are saddled with lifetime felony records that prevent them from getting jobs or student loans - is cruel and ineffective. We need to look, here, to more successful European models. And, more importantly, we need to fix the problems with these communities that make people turn to drugs like these as an escape.

Posted by Josh G. | January 3, 2007 9:34 PM

Well, I think pretty much any substance you want should be available and regulated like alcohol and tobacco* - and I'm definitely not a libertarian. Of course, I also think our alcohol prohibitions are way too strict, but there we have a problem:

It's my unscientific belief that our prohibitions are deeply tied into our drinking culture. I'm going to make some very broad generalizations about my perception of Southern European drinking culture vs. American (and Northern European drinking culture) and say that there's more focus on alcohol as part of the meal, less focus on getting hammered for its own sake. Broad generalization, but of a sort that lots of people appear to think is reasonably true. Supposedly binge drinking among teens is less of a problem in, say, Italy than it is in Britain, and the alcohol laws in Italy reflect this. (I believe Britain is laxer in this regard than the US, but the last time I was in either country I was 12, and the Italians offered me wine and the Brits didn't.) My own biases (largely reflective, no doubt, of my upbringing) are to prefer the Southern European attitude towards the culture around and legal status of booze. To change (either) one will I believe change the other, but there will necessarily be a period of transition - either the old laws will prove needlessly restrictive given their purpose in the new drinking culture, or bunches of teenagers socialized to seek drunkenness as a state-of-being second only to orgasm will drink-and/or-drunk-drive themselves to death. The consequences of such a transition would probably be even worse, public health wise, for things like cocaine and heroin. So I don't really know what to do about it.

*Ideally up to and including things like cyanide, but here I run into another problem I hadn't considered: I have no problem letting people buy cyanide if they want to kill themselves, but I have some issues with selling it to people who want to commit murder. Now, it's I guess possible, but extremely difficult, unlikely, and almost certainly unstealthy to murder someone via alcohol poisoning, but considerably less difficult on all counts to do it with cocaine or heroin (assuming convenient form). Hmm.

Posted by Quarterican | January 3, 2007 9:38 PM

I run into people all the time who assert that legalizing drug use will result in benefits to society that are obvious and incontravertible. I don't understand their vision.

Will the crack, meth and heroin dealers be able to stake out their corners without worry that the police will be after them? How will that reduce the price and reduce the crime? Prices fluctuate up and down all the time, depending on supply. The price still has to be paid by people who don't have the money. How will that change?

The producers, importers or locals, will still price to make a profit and fight to keep other suppliers off their turf. And they will still do everything they can to increase the number of their customers. How will that change?

The drugs, especially crack, meth and heroin, will still destroy, rot the brains and lives of the people who use them. How will that change?

There seems to be an idea that if all these drugs were legal that there would be no illegal market but that's a fantasy.

Even if there were drugstores, the way there are liquor stores, most of these drugs would still be traded on the off legal market. People who buy single malt scotch don't wake up in the morning looking for it. And they don't buy it instead of food and housing.

I have dear friend who is rabid about outlawing cigarettes and yet wants to legalize grass, crack, meth and heroin. But he's a wealthy guy who resents that he can't by grass for the weekend. He doesn't know or care that crack has decimated three generations of people in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore etc. etc. etc. just since the 1990.

All of which is to say, that when I read people decrying the "War on Drugs" and calling for legalization. I think they're annoyed that they can't have their weekend treat They're not thinking about the affect on the community beyond theirs.

Posted by Jan | January 3, 2007 9:41 PM

Even if there were drugstores, the way there are liquor stores, most of these drugs would still be traded on the off legal market.

Uhm, why? I suppose there might be an underground alcohol trade I'm unaware of other than (a) creepy older people buying high school kids beer, and (b) people smuggling certain kinds of alcohol you're not supposed to bring into the country for trade/tariff reasons, but it's certainly not extensive. The existing avenues of alcohol distribution satisfy people's needs to buy it. Including:

People who buy single malt scotch don't wake up in the morning looking for it.

These people you claim don't exist, who happen to exist.

And they don't buy it instead of food and housing.

I don't know personally of people who literally chose to buy liquor over paying rent, though I've certainly heard of people choosing to buy it over food on particular occasions, and we're all aware that lots of people essentially lose their jobs/houses/means of buying food as a result of their inability to stop abusing alcohol.

Posted by Quarterican | January 3, 2007 9:49 PM

I run into people all the time who assert that legalizing drug use will result in benefits to society that are obvious and incontravertible. I don't understand their vision.

Will the crack, meth and heroin dealers be able to stake out their corners without worry that the police will be after them? How will that reduce the price and reduce the crime? Prices fluctuate up and down all the time, depending on supply. The price still has to be paid by people who don't have the money. How will that change?

The producers, importers or locals, will still price to make a profit and fight to keep other suppliers off their turf. And they will still do everything they can to increase the number of their customers. How will that change?

The drugs, especially crack, meth and heroin, will still destroy, rot the brains and lives of the people who use them. How will that change?

There seems to be an idea that if all these drugs were legal that there would be no illegal market but that's a fantasy.

Even if there were drugstores, the way there are liquor stores, most of these drugs would still be traded on the off legal market. People who buy single malt scotch don't wake up in the morning looking for it. And they don't buy it instead of food and housing.

I have dear friend who is rabid about outlawing cigarettes and yet wants to legalize grass, crack, meth and heroin. But he's a wealthy guy who resents that he can't by grass for the weekend. He doesn't know or care that crack has decimated three generations of people in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore etc. etc. etc. just since the 1990.

All of which is to say, that when I read people decrying the "War on Drugs" and calling for legalization. I think they're annoyed that they can't have their weekend treat They're not thinking about the affect on the community beyond theirs.

Posted by Jan | January 3, 2007 10:10 PM

This is a really poor post, MY. You're playing into the hands of those who claim the alternatives are either the current total war-on-drugs policy, or total legalization and deregulation. That kind of talk is a shibboleth created by the war-on-drugs crowd. The real alternative, ever since the early '70s when Nixon was considering it before launching the disastrously ill-fated hard-line approach we have now, is heavily regulated, medicalized, but not criminalized availability of Schedule 1 drugs.

All of this stuff has been figured out, and it works. You set up a government system of "addict cards". To get your addict card, you have to go for a checkup with a licensed professional. Your addict card entitles you to come into a safe, monitored government facility, get a free hit once a day, and shoot up using a clean needle under the supervision of medical staff. You have to stay in the facility for some time afterwards; then you're free to go. It's safe, boring, and utterly unattractive.

In the Netherlands, where this system was fully in place by the mid-90s, they have a shrinking population of heroin addicts and a vanishing level of heroin-related crime. In the US, as the Males article makes clear, we have rising levels of hard drug use in older populations and skyrocketing levels of drug-related crime.

The problem is that Americans can't get their heads around the idea of "not illegal, but tightly regulated". If there are libertarians who think we should just let heroin be sold over the counter, they're idiots; but that's not the real argument that's going on here.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 3, 2007 10:13 PM

OK, if you don't think heroin should be sold to any adult who wants it, riddle me this: let's say someone buys heroin, who isn't supposed to. What do you do to him? Prison? No, we're civilized now, we've decriminalized heroin. Forced rehab? OK. What if he doesn't want to go to rehab? At some point, you're still talking about imprisoning people who want to take drugs you don't approve of, instead of gin or pot or whatever. That's just wrong.

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 10:25 PM

OK, I just read brooksfoe's comment above mine. What if someone wants to do some hard drugs, just for fun, and they're not an "addict"? Prison for them, right? Or rehab until they admit they're an addict?

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 10:27 PM

Q- Do you really think that there is no difference between buying a bottle of wine for dinner and buying crack to smoke? If so, you've proven my point.

Posted by Jan | January 3, 2007 10:28 PM

Jan -

My intent wasn't to compare having a bottle of wine with dinner to smoking crack. My intent was to compare downing a twelve-pack of beer or its equivalent by yourself to smoking crack. I've never known anybody who uses crack or heroin the way that, e.g., my dad has a few glasses of wine with dinner (have known people w/similar pot habits, though). But I have known people who maintained stable lives while doing cocaine (not crack, though) on an occasional recreational basis, and known people who destroyed their lives by drinking.

Posted by Quarterican | January 3, 2007 10:47 PM

Jan,

Do you really think there is a difference between buying crack to smoke and buying a bottle of cheap vodka to guzzle? What about buying a bottle of wine for dinner and buying some fine cocaine to snort for an evening out? See how hard this gets? Substances themselves aren't evil. It's all context.

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 10:47 PM

Hey, great minds think alike. Anyway, there's some research to show (nope, don't have a cite handy) that recreational crack smokers are more common that you think. Also, there are plenty of functional heroin users.

Posted by too many steves | January 3, 2007 10:48 PM

I can't believe Matt posted this garbage.

The War on Drugs is fine as long as it does not

1. Continue to tie up resources with marijuana related enforcement
2. Continue to place individuals in prison for the consumption or sale of marijuana
3. Continue taking the valuable time of district attorneys and public defenders in cases where marijuana is the central concern

Posted by a | January 3, 2007 10:51 PM

The real problem

Heroin probably wouldn't expand much beyond its present user base even if legal sanctions were removed. It's the needles. You have to be pretty hardcore to put up with sticking yourself with the needles, even if they're clean, and those people will use whether it's legal or illegal, so they're already mostly using. Also, heroin rushes the opioid effect in a heavily front-loaded pattern. Not too many people really want to be blasted out of their heads. Most of us, for better or worse, are too self-satisfied.

But all of us suffer daily the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and moderately-released opioids are good for what ails you, a true panacea for the spirit oppressed by pain, physical or emotional. Morphine pills available on demand would be much, much worse than heroin. No needles. No guilt-inducing initial rush of pleasure. Just the soothing comfort of poppy-induced Nepenthe. Potential customer base? About 100% of the population. Potential for trouble? Well, heroin is not what got us to control medications by prescription 150 years ago, it was morphine.

Loose and unthinking talk about legalizing drugs of abuse never seems to address the real problem that got us regulating drugs in the first place 150 years ago. The real problem is not the drugs preferred by the far fringe of the addict population, but their cousins with legitimate medical uses that have a far greater potential for abuse as self-medication for the masses.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | January 3, 2007 10:53 PM

The idea that you can have a "not illegal but tightly regulated" governmentally controlled drug distribution system is a fantasy. In the 70's the left reformers convinced everyone that the state mental institutions were oppressive (they were) and that the answer was to turn all the inmates out into community-based homes. but the community-based homes never materialized and the patients were dumped on the streets and left homeless.

The idea that the government will somehow provide services that will wean all these people from their drugs and prevent any new users is fantasy. The idea that people who want their crack now will stand in line at a government office when they can walk down the block and buy from their reliable supplier is fantasy.

And the idea that it would be better for the government to be the provider of crack, meth, and heroin is insanity.

So here's where I'm at: I don't want to be around people maxed on crack, meth or heroin. I don't want stores in my neighborhood selling them, and I don't want my town government handing them out. So why would I want them legalized?

Posted by Jan | January 3, 2007 10:54 PM

Heroin probably wouldn't expand much beyond its present user base even if legal sanctions were removed. It's the needles

Almost no one starts IV, they start snorting. Same with cocaine or meth. You move to needles when the cost/benefit to your addiction overrides concerns like pain or distaste and it seems like a quaint reason to waste four or five fixes sticking it up your nose instead of booting it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 3, 2007 10:57 PM

Two things, 1) Matt, what do you think of Colvin's (persuasively presented) capacity on S3 of The Wire to promote public health and decrease violent crime by a de facto regulatory scheme? A clear improvement over the status quo ante, no? 2) TAP ran an interesting article a couple years' back exploring the posibility of regulating rather than completely legalizing drugs, maybe you would find it apropos. Can't remember the author.

Posted by hhal | January 3, 2007 10:57 PM

wow. what a terrible post. Did someone slip you a mickey?

Ads for heroin after cartoons and selling it out of ice cream trucks is preposterous (though it did make for a good cheech and chong movie). Even without regulation, the market would surely prevent this from happening. What parent would let their kids watch cartoons on a channel with ads for heroin or allow the kids to buy ice cream from the ice cream/heroin truck. If I were a competitor, I would make a big deal about how my cartoons have no ads for heroin and my ice cream truck sells only ice cream, not heroin.

If I had to predict where this stuff would be sold if unregulated, it would be in existing adult outlets that wouldn't face competitive repercussions for selling heroin and crack along with their fritos, diet coke and candy bars.

Posted by djslippyb | January 3, 2007 11:14 PM

Matt's question is kind of like when a four-year-old asks you "What's sex?" or "Why did the French Revolution happen?"

But we can clear away a little underbrush. Almost all Americans at some point in their life will use some heavy-duty opioid painkillers. And 99% of these people will stop using those drugs when they don't need them. Studies have repeatedly shown that if you let the patient control the dosage, they will use less than if you let the doctor or the nurse control the dosage.

However, if you did use morphine regularly all your life, the effect on your body would be little to none (assuming you can get pharmaceutical grade morphine).

Much the same is true of the other drugs. Most people who try them quit voluntarily, and of those who continue to use them, most use them recreationally and it does not affect their performance on or off the job.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the effect of our drug policies on our national life. We've spent a trillion over the past 30 years fighting drugs, and American rates of drug use are higher than most similar nations. We put more people in prison than any other country in the world.

But who wants to go on and on? Instead, I will just ask why Matt thinks his local sheriff is better qualified to prescribe his medications than his doctor? Does Matt want to make alcohol and cigarettes just as illegal as marijuana? Does he think alcohol prohibition was a success and Repeal was a big mistake? Or has he ever, in fact, learned anything at all about psychoactive substances and why people use them?

It's hard to believe he has, judging from this post.

Posted by serial catowner | January 3, 2007 11:17 PM

What if someone wants to do some hard drugs, just for fun, and they're not an "addict"? Prison for them, right? - too many steves

No, no prison for them. Maybe a misdemeanor fine. Prison, however, for whoever sold them the heroin. And because heroin will be available for free to anyone who has an addict card, there's no repeat business for heroin dealers, and that business will simply dry up -- high risk, no return. Pretty soon, it gets fairly hard for that potential casual first-time user to find anyone who will sell them heroin.

Just wanted to put in this, from my current fave song of addiction:

I was thinking I could clean up for Christmas
and then call it a day
tell you I was sorry that I made you a witness
to my moral decay
and that once upon a time
I believed it was a victimless crime

-- Aimee Mann, "Clean Up for Christmas"

Posted by brooksfoe | January 3, 2007 11:33 PM

Serial catowner seems to be typical of white middle class liberals who rail against the "war on drugs" because it deprives her of weekend grass. That would seem to be her real interest.

So we shouldn't be worried that she's venturing into the wilds of Detroit to buy real drugs. (Wilds of vast expanses of inner city Detroit that have reverted back to wilderness due to the ravages of loss of manufacturing jobs and the crack epidemic.}

It would be helpful if middle class boomers would specify exactly which drugs they're so concerned about legalizing.

Posted by Jan | January 3, 2007 11:44 PM

Ok, there is something people don't understand about back when morphine and opium and marijuana and cocaine were legal, and that is, they were often the best medication available for the problems people had.

You see, young people, medical science did not always work the wonders that it does today. In fact, 1900 is sometimes referred to as the watershed year when doctors started doing more good than harm.

In 1910 nobody knew about antibiotics, there was no vaccine for polio, almost no cancers were treatable, a broken bone usually resulted in a permanent deformity and permanent pain, nobody had a clue about how to treat an ulcer, an irritable bowel, impetigo or asthma, etc etc etc

At the time, a conservative course of pain management was often the best course available.

Yea verily, and it came to pass, that in 1918 a man named Flexner had a briliant idea about how doctors could be come a state-sanctioned monopoly and get control of the dispensing of medications. They cut a deal with the druggists, went to the state legislatures, and we ended up with two new monopolies, druggists and doctors.

Even this situation didn't need to be as bad as things have turned out, but 15 years later Prohibition was repealed and a lot of policemen were faced with the unpleasant prospect of finding a real job. Reefer madness! Almost before you could say "Satanic marijuana Mexican cult" marijuana was made illegal, and the Dupont investment in chlorine to bleach the pulp made from the Hearst investment in pulpwood forests was (were?) safe!

Of course, when we consider the medical uses developed for pot by illegal users in spite of the opposition of the government, and what we're learning now about the cannabinoid pathways of the brain, it may appear that some of the decisions made in the past were suboptimal. To say the least.

In any case, the supposedly harmful effects of what were actually the best medications of the time were just the excuses used by people who made them illegal for other reasons.

Posted by serial catowner | January 3, 2007 11:47 PM

It would be helpful if middle class boomers would specify exactly which drugs they're so concerned about legalizing.

As far as I can see you are the type of white liberal who is trying to do people favors by sticking them through the prison system.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 3, 2007 11:49 PM

Ol' "Jan" here is sure full of it. Yes, parts of Detroit are pretty green- because the city condemned abandoned properties, bulldozed the wreckage into cellars, let grass grow over all, and now the properties can't be sold without cleaning up the toxic products (like asbestos) that were buried on the sites.

The cause of Detroit's decay was the same as every other city of the period- the move to the suburbs, and the financial failure of the industries that had ruled the town. Drugs played a role that was tiny to nonexistent in the decline, as even white people can understand when they study the matter soberly.

But Jan's comment is a good example of how "drugs" are used to confuse and obscure the real causes of decay and poverty.

Posted by serial catowner | January 3, 2007 11:55 PM

"I have no problem letting people buy cyanide if they want to kill themselves, but I have some issues with selling it to people who want to commit murder."

Although, I suppose, a gun would be both an easier and a more effective thing than cyanide to buy for murder in most of the continental US. Or a really big knife. Or a large brick and a tall ladder to drop it from. "It could be used for murder" is not particularly a reason to ban something.

"It is ONLY really used for murder" is a vastly better one that would probably apply both to many non-hunting guns and to cyanide.

Those who want to kill themselves, will, I'm confident, continue to have plenty of non-cyanide options.

Posted by Andrew Edwards | January 4, 2007 12:01 AM

The idea that people who want their crack now will stand in line at a government office when they can walk down the block and buy from their reliable supplier is fantasy. And the idea that it would be better for the government to be the provider of crack, meth, and heroin is insanity. - Jan

Jan, I suggest you travel to Australia or the Netherlands, lands of fantasy and insanity -- and, of course, much lower levels of heroin use, injecting drug-related HIV transmission, and heroin-related crime. I also suggest that you explain WHY it would be worse for the government to be the supplier of heroin. As everyone knows, anything the government hands out for free instantly becomes uncool. This is not crazy fantasy stuff; it operates in Europe, and it works. If you think it can't work here because we're multiracial and they're not, because we have ghettoes and they don't, blah blah blah - look up the definition of "banlieu", or pay a visit to majority-thug-Moroccan Osdorp.

Incidentally, I don't make the same claims about meth or crack, because I don't know whether this approach works with them. As serious drug experts will tell you, every drug is different and requires different approaches.

Also: since you apparently believe it would impossible for the US gov't to provide services to injecting drug users, would you classify the extant government-funded methadone clinic infrastructure as a fantasy? Or would that be insanity?

Posted by brooksfoe | January 4, 2007 12:02 AM

Andrew Edwards -

Points taken; it was a footnote that occurred to me in the middle of my post. Of course, it'd be easier to kill someone and fake a suicide with cyanide than a handgun or a knife, but that's really stretching the point.

Posted by Quarterican | January 4, 2007 12:14 AM

Matt's using crack cocaine as an example is funny, because crack only exists because pure cocaine is illegal.

Posted by Ed | January 4, 2007 12:25 AM

OK, if you don't think heroin should be sold to any adult who wants it, riddle me this: let's say someone buys heroin, who isn't supposed to. What do you do to him? Prison? No, we're civilized now, we've decriminalized heroin.

Um, you'd probably suspend the license to sell of the vendor who'd violated the regulation, similar to what you'd do now to an offending liquor store. The risk of losing profits is a substantial incentive to follow the law.

Posted by Jasper | January 4, 2007 12:26 AM

No actually I'm a white liberal who spent two years nursing crack babies, and worse, three and four year old formally addicted crack kids taken out of situations of abuse who who had no words, who could not talk, and did not know their names.

Those kids are fifteen now. There isn't even a ghost of a possibility that even one of those kids is OK today. The crack epidemic was unique in its effect on the community because so many women succumbed to it and its effects were so quickly debilitating. Crack's addicting potential turned endless neighborhoods of poor but still maintaining single mother headed households into neighborhoods of abandoned children.

Legalizing crack will not make this better. Taking the law enforcement out of the situation will make it worse. It will be come a mexican free for all.

Posted by Jan | January 4, 2007 12:31 AM

There is no such thing as crack babies. Cocaine doesn't pass through the placenta. Crack heads don't eat, they usually drink alcohol, and while you almost surely shouldn't be using cocaine when you are pregnant. The crack baby phenomenon was an excuse to write people off. See a number of different studies (Chasnoff was probably the definitive) conducted since that fell off the radar like satanic cults, the day care pedophile ring, etc..

Say they did exist. You are still in the position of defending a system that creates a per capita prison population that can only be found elsewhere in the most authoritarian regimes on the planet. If you are looking for the egg in this chicken problem it's not drugs. They have drugs elsewhere.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 4, 2007 12:57 AM

Many babies are born to mothers who are alcoholic, often with the same consequences. So should alcohol be banned? Or should I say banned again?

Also, forget legalization. I would settle for Law enforcement and prosecutors loosing their immunity when they behave badly. The way things are now, smoking marijuana carries far more consequences than an overzealous DA and local law enforcement who wind up killing innocent people.

Lastly, isn't it Liberals who have been near hysterical in their accusations of totalitarianism, dicatorship, criminality and other assorted misbehavior by the Republicans. Well I guess we see now, the new boss is the same as the old boss. I can't wait until 2008 to vote against the Democratic knucklehead I just voted for two months ago.

Posted by hjs | January 4, 2007 1:18 AM

I volunteered for two years on a ward in a hospital in Chicago specifically designed to take care of infants born addicted to cocaine. We were given definite instructions on how to hold and comfort them in their withdrawal. The babies on the ward were there because their mothers were crack addicts and their babies were therefore also addicted. Your information about cocaine use not addicting the unborn baby is wrong and I hope you will not pass this bad information on to anyone else.

I think it's awful that so many people are in jail because they can't think of anything to do with their lives except to use and sell drugs that make them stupid. I wish they could do something better with their lives, especially something that isn't illegal. But I don't see why making something that is overall bad for the society at large should be made legal because some people can't keep themselves from being manifestly stupid.

There is no reason why society should excuse people for the behaviors that result from taking drugs that make them stupid, violent, lazy, irresponsible, promiscuous, criminal, abusive or anything else. If that's what you do, that's what you are.

If you don't want people to say that's what you are, then stop it.

Posted by Jan | January 4, 2007 1:31 AM

Jan, I don't even think what I said is a subject of serious debate anymore. Those kids surely needed help and God bless you for being there.

On the other hand, I'm really, really, glad that drugs don't make everyone into folks who want to see people thrown into dark, dank holes for doing things that are illegal and bad for them because if they did they would really scare the crap out of me.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 4, 2007 1:41 AM

Jan, I don't even think what I said is a subject of serious debate anymore. Those kids surely needed help and God bless you for being there.

On the other hand, I'm really, really, glad that drugs don't make everyone into folks who want to see people thrown into dark, dank holes for doing things that are illegal and bad for them because if they did they would really scare the crap out of me.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 4, 2007 1:45 AM

Violent, Criminal and abusive behavior are already illegal, so why not just punish people for that behavior.

Stupidity, Laziness, irresponsibilty, and promiscuity are not. But if they are ever outlawed, we will all find ourselves as tenants of the Gray Bar Hotel someday Jan. Yourself included. Don't tell me that you and everyone you know hasn't exhibited at least one of the four traits I just listed above at one time or another.

I find it odd that you would mix all of those traits together.

As for personal stories, I was raided by the DEA in 1991 because I was guilty of renting a house from an owner who was growing Marijuana at another location. Because of rent checks I had written the owner, I was charged with felony distribution. 7 months and several thousand dollars later all charges were dropped. During the entire 7 months, I was harrassed, threatened and browbeaten by the authorities to plead guilty to something I didn't do. My expereince was this, you cannot trust the Government to do the right thing. Once you get caught up in the system, it becomes a game that the Government cannot admit they made a mistake. Just like a stalker whose only hope is that you will eventually give in out of fear for your life. My Attorney told me that I was lucky I was white. If I was Mexican or Black, they may have chanced a trial despite the total absence of any hard evidence. I had a scale that measured in ounces ( I was working out and watching my diet) and baggies in the kitchen (everybody I know has these), that plus my rent checks to the landlord were the only "proof" they had.

This is the system you support. Nice theories about how to make perfect world where people are industrious, intelligent, Chaste and responisble, are the fantasy. My experience was reality.

Posted by hjs | January 4, 2007 2:16 AM

On second thought, I like your idea better. Although I wanted to add a few things to the list that can result in hard time.

Arrogance
Being inconsiderate
Vanity
Gluttony

Posted by hjs | January 4, 2007 2:47 AM

Oh, and Basketball.

Do you know how many inner city kids neglect their education betting on the one in a million chance that they will become star in the NBA? Ban it I say.

Posted by hjs | January 4, 2007 3:12 AM

There's a lot of fanatical ignorance here -- especially from Jan, who was very quick to smear serial catowner without any evidence.

Jan, you have crack babies and you have fetal alcohol syndrome babies. Both very bad. Crack is illegal, alcohol is legal. But all you has to do is look at a crack baby, and that also tells you that the present drug laws are right, and also that Serial Catowner is a middleclass drug user. You have a lot of passion but no logic and only scattered facts, and the way you smear people is creepy. ("Mexican free for all"? I'm beginning to see where you're coming from).

Almost no one here has tried to sort out the intrinsic costs of drug use from those caused by illegality, inflated prices, and the criminal lifestyle that comes with drug use. For example, legalization would NOT mean that the thug on the streetcorner would be selling drugs with impunity. Legalization would put the thug out of business.

Pharmaceutical cocaine used to be routinely used (I believe tha novacaine is a similar compound) and when it was, it was far cheaper than street cocaine. (The link below, behind a pay wall, is all I could find on the subject just now). Much the same is true of heroin. Sorting out the costs rising from the high cost and the costs rising from the drug itself really needs to be done.

The present policy is particularly fiendish, because we have used the law to multiply the price of some of the few substances people are willing to ruin their lives in order to get. If something non-addictive is outlawed, people will mostly forget about it and it will go away. But addictive drugs don't go away.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465303322369696?journalCode=rest

I am not in favor of flat legalization, but the argument here is abysmally bad.

Posted by John Emerson | January 4, 2007 7:27 AM

Jan's 10:54 is totally loony. The failure of so-called "community mental health" tells us nothing whatsoever about drug legalization. Two completely different, unrelated things, and community mental health was never properly implemented -- it was mostly used just as a cost-saving measure.

They only thing that the two things have in common are that they make Jan unhappy because he/she feels that they have forced or will force him/her to deal with unpleasant people on the street.

My brother lives in Vancouver, BC, which has a tolerance policy for most drugs rather like the Dutch policy. Vancouver is not Utopia but it probably better off than most American cities.

And people -- Detroit was ruined by the collapse of the American auto industry. Not by black teenagers on dope.

Posted by John Emerson | January 4, 2007 7:38 AM

"So here's where I'm at: I don't want to be around people maxed on crack, meth or heroin. I don't want stores in my neighborhood selling them, and I don't want my town government handing them out."

You don't get to make that choice, other than by staying home. Everyone else is making the choice on how to get their heads up without consulting you. You're around 'em now.

"So why should I want it legalized?"

Why should you care? What you want is a fantasy world that a pretty major use of governmental and societal resources, such as clucking disapproval, have been unable to create anywhere. We could go full-on Facist and put a stop to drug use. (Make drug possession a hanging offense, drug test everyone randomly, recruit everyone to spy on their neighbor)

Oh, and your crack about where Serial Catowner is buying his/her drugs shows some pretty serious misinformation. To the extent that drugs destroyed Detroit, suburbanites contributed heavily by driving in from Farmington Hills to buy coke. My friends who grew up in the suburbs over there bought pot at home, but usually drove to the city for harder stuff. They contributed more to the actual forces that destroyed Detroit, however.

Posted by witless chum | January 4, 2007 7:46 AM

"They" being suburanites in general contributing to the actual, mostly non-drug, reasons for Detroit's current state.

Posted by witless chum | January 4, 2007 7:50 AM

The "crack epidemic", much like the more recent "meth head" hysteria, is hype and distaste for the class using the drug (poor people) more than anything else. Crack was bad because it was cheap and used by inner city black people. Regular cocaine wasn't so bad because it is used primarily by middle- to upper-class white people. Meth is bad because it's mostly a poor, rural drug. MY should be able to see the class politics at work here, I would think.

Posted by Sam Hutcheson | January 4, 2007 8:57 AM

Matthew Yglesias:

I consistently find it bizarre that there are some people who seem to think it would be a good idea if you could just walk into your local convenience store and pick up some heroin or crack along with your Fritos and Diet Coke.

Last year the US government estimates are that 400,000 people died prematurely due to tobacco, 100,000 from alcohol, and 20,000 from all the illicit drugs combined. About 10,000 from heroin. Many of those deaths due to heroin's illegal status, not an intrinsic risk of the drug.

If heroin deaths were 10 times as common with widespread legality (highly unlikely), they still wouldn't approach the deaths from tobacco.

Heroin addicts, unlike alcoholics, do not shoot up bars or run my kids over on the highways; of all the drugs, only alcohol causes significant deaths to non-users, with tobacco, from second hand smoke, a distant second.

Why do you think I should be able to pick up alcohol and tobacco, far more dangerous both to the user and the innocent than heroin, in the local convenience store, but not heroin? This is a failure of imagination at best, and mindless moralizing at worst.

But that's not how it should happen. We need some rational consistency with dangerous recreational drugs. May I suggest the model of Pennsylvania.

We are one of two states that have a state store system where alcohol can only be bought at state owned stores (except for beer). This could be extended to all dangerous, addicting drugs, including cigarettes and heroin. Picture ID and signature required.

I expect there would be an increase in deaths from heroin and cocaine, but a decrease in deaths from cigarettes and alcohol. But since a 5% drop in cigarette and alcohol deaths would balance a more than doubling of heroin deaths (not to mention the drop in deaths from the drug wars, etc) we would have fewer deaths.

To make it politically palatable (to the political bosses, not the people, the people are sheep, if they can be sold the Iraq war, we can sell them anything) I would privatize these stores and have the DEA closely monitor those awarded the franchises to see they followed the rules.

Fewer deaths, consistency in the drug laws, fewer prisoners being brutalized and sent back out to the community. What's not to like?

Posted by epistemology | January 4, 2007 9:07 AM

It's really easy for an upper class guy to think our drug policy is just fine, he's not going to go to jail if he gets arrested for these drugs. Mommy and Daddy will protect him and his money means they won't even charge him for the crime he SHOULD be charged. Yglesias repeatedly proves that he has NO clue how the law works for MOST people. He is completely clueless (or he simply doesn't care) that these drug laws ruin thousands of lives of people he wouldn't even be willing to eat lunch with.

Posted by soullite | January 4, 2007 9:13 AM

I'm a big fan of Matt's writing most of the time, but this post tells us a lot about why the US has an insane drug policy. When a smart, well-educated liberal writes something like this, it illustrates the extent to which the propaganda function of the war on drugs has been successful with a whole generation.

I mean Matt usually would laugh at loud at a ridiculous strawman position like "heroin will be sold out of ice cream trucks." As somebody points out above, the idea that the criminal law is the only thing standing between the status quo and heroin sold out of ice cream trucks is incredibly naive.

And while I don't favor total deregulation, it seems screamingly obvious to me that total deregulation, although significantly suboptimal as a policy, would be VASTLY preferable to the current regime, which does almost incaluable damage and produces hardly any benefits, for reasons that many of the people commenting in this thread have already touched on.

Reading suggestion: Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics.

Posted by Paul Campos | January 4, 2007 9:48 AM

Jan consistently cites crack, meth and heroin but the prevalence of these drugs is a consequence of prohibition. I didn't go out on my 19th birthday and buy my first bathtub gin--I had a beer.

The legal precusors to crack, meth and heroin were cocaine, amphetimine and opium.

I think a legal market in these substances would provide safer, more dilute versions of these substances. Instead of crack you might have the original hi-test coca cola, instead of meth it would be legal (and useful) amphetimine, and instead of heroin you would probably see most people who choose to use opiates opting for something on the order of vicodin.

Think about it....if you drink, do you choose Everclear because it will get you drunk the fastest?

Posted by Chris Anderson | January 4, 2007 10:21 AM

It seems we've moved past this, but I think it should be said again:

There is no such thing as crack babies.

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/5/voices-blake.asp

Posted by too many steves | January 4, 2007 11:02 AM

Many posters here seem to be using the "alcohol and cigarrettes are just as bad" approach to advocating drug legalisation. Tobacco is bad for you, but it is hardly mind-altering or life-destroying--to equate it with hard drugs or alcohol is absurd. It's true that habitual alcohol drinking can be worse than habitual marijuana smoking for some people, and as bad as crack or meth for others. But it is also more or less ingrained in the culture and history of western nations. More importantly, the fact that it is legal does not mean other drugs should be legal.

Sure, having small amounts of drugs shouldn't be a crime and we need to spend more money on treatment and prevention. Legalisation is a whole other matter. Arguments advocating wholesale legalisation of hard drugs are painfully naive--they forget that the laws of the polis have got to make an effort to check natural tendencies towards vice and self-destruction.

Even marijuana legalisation is difficult to imagine. One the one hand it would be nice to buy small amounts at the corner store for the weekend or special occasions, and not have to worry about getting caught or the difficulties of scoring weed (as things are now, you usually have to buy more than you want or need, which contributes to compulsive use). On the other hand it would be diffic