csua.org/u/d2e -> www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=709603
A youngster slithers inexorably from a fe w puffs on a joint, to a snort of cocaine, to the needle and addiction. It was the flesh-creeping heart of Traffic, a film about the descent i nto heroin hell of a pretty young middle-class girl, and it is the terro r that keeps drug laws in place. It explains why even those politicians who puffed at a joint or two in their youth hesitate to put the case for legalising drugs.
survey), is that it would lead to a rise in their use, and therefore to a rise in the number of people dependent on them. Some argue that drug laws have no impact, because drugs are widely avail able. Untrue: drugs are expensivea kilo of heroin sells in America for as much as a new Rolls-Roycepartly because their price reflects the dan gers involved in distributing and buying them. It is much harder and ris kier to pick up a dose of cocaine than it is to buy a bottle of whisky. Remove such constraints, make drugs accessible and very much cheaper, an d more people will experiment with them. A rise in drug-taking will inevitably mean that more people will become d ependentinevitably, because drugs offer a pleasurable experience that p eople seek to repeat. In the case of most drugs, that dependency may be no more than a psychological craving and affect fewer than one in five u sers; in the case of heroin, it is physical and affects maybe one in thr ee. Addicted gamblers and drinkers bring misery to themselves and their families. In addition, drugs have lasting physical effects and some, taken incompetently, can kill. This is true both for some hard drugs and for some that people t hink of as soft: too much heroin can trigger a strong adverse reaction , but so can ecstasy. The same goes for gin or aspirin, of course: but m any voters reasonably wonder whether it would be right to add to the lis t of harmful substances that are legally available. Of Mill and morality The case for doing so rests on two arguments: one of principle, one pract ical. The principles were set out, a century and a half ago, by John Stu art Mill, a British liberal philosopher, who urged that the state had no right to intervene to prevent individuals from doing something that har med them, if no harm was thereby done to the rest of society. Over hims elf, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign, Mill famo usly proclaimed. This is a view that The Economist has always espoused, and one to which most democratic governments adhere, up to a point. They allow the individual to undertake all manner of dangerous activities un challenged, from mountaineering to smoking to riding bicycles through ci ty streets. Such pursuits alarm insurance companies and mothers, but are rightly tolerated by the state.
True, Mill argued that some social groups, especially children, required extra protection. And some argue that drug-takers are also a special cla ss: once addicted, they can no longer make rational choices about whethe r to continue to harm themselves. Yet not only are dependent users a min ority of all users; in addition, society has rejected this argument in t he case of alcoholand of nicotine (whose addictive power is greater tha n that of heroin). The important thing here is for governments to spend adequately on health education. The practical case for a liberal approach rests on the harms that spring from drug bans, and the benefits that would accompany legalisation. At p resent, the harms fall disproportionately on poor countries and on poor people in rich countries. In producer and entrepot countries, the drugs trade finances powerful gangs who threaten the state and corrupt politic al institutions. Colombia is the most egregious example, but Mexico too wrestles with the threat to the police and political honesty. The attemp t to kill illicit crops poisons land and people. Drug money helps to pro p up vile regimes in Myanmar and Afghanistan. And drug production encour ages local drug-taking, which (in the case of heroin) gives a helping ha nd to the spread of HIV/AIDS. In the rich world, it is the poor who are most likely to become involved in the drugs trade (the risks may be high, but drug-dealers tend to be e qual-opportunity employers), and therefore end up in jail. Nowhere is th is more shamefully true than in the United States, where roughly one in four prisoners is locked up for a (mainly non-violent) drugs offence. Am erica's imprisonment rate for drugs offences now exceeds that for all cr imes in most West European countries. Moreover, although whites take dru gs almost as freely as blacks and Hispanics, a vastly disproportionate n umber of those arrested, sentenced and imprisoned are non-white. Drugs p olicy in the United States is thus breeding a generation of men and wome n from disadvantaged backgrounds whose main training for life has been i n the violence of prison. Legalise to regulate Removing these harms would bring with it another benefit. Precisely becau se the drugs market is illegal, it cannot be regulated. Laws cannot disc riminate between availability to children and adults. Governments cannot insist on minimum quality standards for cocaine; or demand that distributors take responsibility for the way their products are sold. With alcohol and tobacco, such restric tions are possible; This increases the dangers to users , and especially to young or incompetent users. Illegality also puts a p remium on selling strength: if each purchase is risky, then it makes sen se to buy drugs in concentrated form. In the same way, Prohibition in th e United States in the 1920s led to a fall in beer consumption but a ris e in the drinking of hard liquor.
How, if governments accepted the case for legalisation, to get from here to there? When, in the 18th century, a powerful new intoxicant became av ailable, the impact was disastrous: it took years of education for gin t o cease to be a social threat. That is a strong reason to proceed gradua lly: it will take time for conventions governing sensible drug-taking to develop. Meanwhile, a century of illegality has deprived governments of much information that good policy requires. As a result, nobody knows how demand may respond to lower prices, and understanding of the physical effects of most drugs is hazy . And how, if drugs were legal, might they be distributed? The thought of h eroin on supermarket shelves understandably adds to the terror of the pr ospect. Just as legal drugs are available through different channelscaf feine from any cafe, alcohol only with proof of age, Prozac only on pres criptionso the drugs that are now illegal might one day be distributed in different ways, based on knowledge about their potential for harm. Mo reover, different countries should experiment with different solutions: at present, many are bound by a United Nations convention that hampers e ven the most modest moves towards liberalisation, and that clearly needs amendment. Drug-taking entails risks, and societies ar e increasingly risk-averse. But the role of government should be to prev ent the most chaotic drug-users from harming othersby robbing or by dri ving while drugged, for instanceand to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution. The first task is hard if law enf orcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; A legal market is the best guarantee tha t drug-taking will be no more dangerous than drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so th ey should tolerate those who sell and take drugs.
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