While I tend to agree that civil liberties should come first the drug question is not as simple as some make it nor the panacea it is often described as.
If legalized, it will still be expensive. Drug companies have to list all the potential side effects, build up a fund to deal with lawsuits (I bet heroin would be a helluva class action), and ensure a high level of production quality to prevent problems. On top of the “legal” costs, our politicians will try to tax the crap out of it (see sin taxes on cigarettes creating tobacco smuggling). Stop and think for a second... the FDA would have to approve the drug or variety of the drug for distribution. That costs tons of money and having seen the long term effects of heroin, crack, and meth it won’t be approved using FDA guidelines. The side effects are pretty bad.
It won’t be hard for the Mexican cartels to beat the price of dope from Walgreens and the rest of the social ills from drugs will still continue. I wish there were an easy answer but anyone who promotes the idea that legalization will be all sunshine and sugar does not understand the drug culture or the criminals associated with it.
My own opinion or impression is that probably 85% of crime is related to/or influenced by addiction. Hard drug addicts (and dealers) are not going to go out and get a regular job after legalization happens. We will still have illegal drug dealers and addicts who will use crime to feed the addiction. We will still have the same social costs and if by some miracle the politicians did not tax it and made legal dope cheaper than Mexican dope many of the drug dealers (criminals) will simply find another racket. Hard drug addicts have a hard time holding a job and they will still need to feed the addiction.
How will the FDA approve “legal” heroin, crack, or meth? Anything the FDA approves will probably not be as good as the illegal stuff (or as strong) for the addicts since there is an inherent physiological risks to people who take drugs. I have attended many autopsies of people who OD’d and tossed plenty into an ambulance because they got bad dope, took too much dope, or had a bad reaction to dope. You don’t see lawyers sue drug dealers very often for an OD on a bad batch of dope but I bet the trial lawyers would be lining up to sue any company that distributed hard drugs for plenty of reasons.
Almost two decades in law enforcement and I absolutely agree that we need to try something new but I don’t know what it is. I am sick of the “war on drugs” but it is the law.
Uncle Sam is already paying the bills for half the country and most regular users of hard drugs will tell you that they can’t feed their habit on a government check. If we did not have to pay for the medical costs of Joe Crackhead (or his kids, apartment, utility bill, food, and kids school etc etc) I would not care what they did but we pay huge amounts of money for this problem.
I believe very little would change and any economic benefit would be minimal. I am not saying this to start a pissing contests with libertarians.... I am just sharing some thoughts for your consideration.
Marijuana is a different animal and I have never really cared much about it but I can’t imagine legalizing hard drugs. I sure would’nt want to work the Walgreens counter where they are selling crack, heroin, and meth because that would be more dangerous than crabfishing in Alaska.
It’s not a simple problem and drug addicts don’t exists in isolation from society in a bubble of self-determination because we pay for them. I don’t see any major evidence that marijuana guarantees you will go on to do hard drugs either. However, when you get past marijuana (equivalent to booze in my book) it’s a whole different discussion.
Good analysis.