These articles and video are all talking about the same problem. As an example, the ideal level of pollution is zero however there will always be pollution. Similarly the ideal level of drug use may be zero, however there will always be drug use of some sort, whether it be cannabis or crack or meth. The drug war (which includes drug legislation and its enforcement) is the MOST expensive war we have ever fought to the tune of trillions of dollars, and it isn't making the situation any better. Incarcerating drug offenders isn't the answer because prison is a breeding ground for violence.
If arrested for selling weed or using crack you will most likely go to prison (in fact crack laws are stricter than cocaine laws even though crack costs less than coke...think about the race implication behind this penalty). In the interest of self-preservation and not wanting to get your ass beat, you are tempted to ally with a gang (most likely the gang operating within vicinity of your neighborhood). While in prison, you pick up more violent tendencies and once released you are on the street with your gang (because no one will hire an ex-con), again selling drugs in order to provide for yourself, and perhaps being involved in gang related violence.
This cycle leads to more prison, more gangs, more violence on the streets, and on and on. The high recidivism rates support this theory. Putting non-violent offenders in jail for prison exposes them to an unsustainable and negative cycle. Unsustainable because we cannot afford to pay for the repercussions of this cycle (i.e. more prisons, guards, unemployment, future drug dealers and gang members) and negative because the cycle becomes a trap for many. Give people a chance, don't lock them up.
If you make drugs legal, won't more people become users?
Perhaps. Friedman brings up a good point in the YouTube video--drug laws drive people from mild drugs to harder drugs. To support this statement, Friedman speaks of "new" drugs like crack (the old meth) to prove his point. Judging from the quality and content of the video, I'd say it was probably filmed in the late 80's when crack was a relatively new phenomena. As a testament to Friedman's statement, ater the "crackdown on crack" a newer drug emerged. Meth proves that the government, the DEA, and paternalistic citizens cannot rely the drug war (which again includes the legislation and enforcement of drug laws) to fight this problem. It is rare for laws and regulations to halt human ingenuity. If anything they foster ingenuity as citizens try to circumvent the law. People are smart, they will find a way to create new substances and circumvent the authorities. People will find a way to make a drug out of products you can buy at the store, and indeed such a substance has been created--it's called crystal meth. If marijuana was legal, who would want to do cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, etc.?! Do you think most addicts want to be dependent on those substances? They would probably settle for pot if they could buy it legally. In Amsterdam, where cannabis is legal, "crystal meth" is not a problem at all.
Now onto another topic. If drugs were legalized, wouldn't more people die because drugs are inherently dangerous...right?
Maybe. The word "drug" is a widely used term and to associate the it with "inherently dangerous" is a classic MADD or DARE induced stereotpye. Some drugs are more dangerous than others. Marijuana for instance is relatively harmless compared to heroin, alcohol, or tobacco (I don't need a chart to tell me that).
Current illicit drug overdose rates are approximately 10,000 a year. Alcohol and tobacco kill 550,000 a year. Prescription drug and alcohol addiction (and tobacco addiction) are higher than illicit drug addiction--and these are all legal! Remember Friedman's argument--people have a tendency to go from harder drugs to softer drugs. Well currently, legal drugs kill more people than illicit drugs, yet legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous compared to the illicit drugs MDMA (pure ecstasy), LSD, and cannabis. Of course one could argue that making illicit drugs legal would increase that fatality number from 10,000 a year to higher levels. However, I believe "hard" drug use (heroin, crack, cocaine) would fall over time if marijuana was legal. The majority of those who die from illicit drugs are from heroin and cocaine.
People do more dangerous drugs when they are illegal. What Friedman argues is also what I believe--people naturally move from hard drugs to soft drugs. The statistics of the Netherlands shows that hard drug use is less than in the US. And as for productivity and creativity...prison kills both more than any drug ever would. Keep asking yourself, would people en masse choose to do a substance like meth if they could buy marijuana at a regulated dispensary?
Now cannabis is California's largest cash crop...~ $9-10 billion...that's a lot of tax revenue. Banning this drug stemmed from a Puritanistic/Evangelical ideology, government paternalism (sounds liberal to me! Except most liberals want the drug war to end as well), and a drug czar who wanted to expand his bureaucracy.
Side note: this is a good website to visit: http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.
Why is Mexico blaming us for a drug problem in their borders?
Mexico is one of our largest trading partners. The country has never had a stable government powerful enough to combat the many issues afflicting it's population, much less rich drug lords. The reason why the drug lords are rich is because there is a HUGE black market (estimated by the Bush admin to be $60 billion dollars) for drugs in the US. This market equals opportunity for Mexicans and Americans (and Canadians). Yes, our policies do affect people in other countries. Why else would people pay so much attention to our politics? Mexico's drug problems CAN BE blamed on our drug policies because those same policies create the economic opportunity for the drug lords! Perhaps if the Mexican government stopped dedicating as many resources to fighting these strong drug lords they would be able to combat more important issues like education, poverty, hunger, etc.
People just don't think outside the box on this issue because they cannot imagine living in a world where marijuana can be bought in a store. That's illogical! No matter how many MADD and DARE presentations your children sit through, the government and paternalistic citizens will never be able to stop people from smoking a harmless substance. The government, and society in general, has more important battles to fight and should stop appeasing the same Puritanistic/Evangelicals who were in support of alcohol prohibition.
Repealing the drug policies and replacing them with European type models (which treat addiction as a health issue) is a policy supported by those on the right and left because it makes sense. You can't use laws and the police to combat every "sinful" drug user. As we see now it's an un-winable war.
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