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America passed a little-noted milestone in 2009 as drug overdoses outnumbered traffic fatalities for the first time ever to become the primary cause of accidental death. The cause? It wasn’t cocaine or heroin or some terrifying new criminal import. The doubling in drug related deaths over the past decade was driven by prescription drug use.
We spend billions of dollars each year on a campaign to limit access to illegal narcotics, but regardless where the drugs come from we remain a heavily medicated society. Anti-depressants alone are consumed on such a spectacular scale they are starting to be found in significant concentrations in river fish.
The time has come for us to finally turn the tide in the drug war by imposing realistic access regulations and abandoning our policy of absolute prohibition. It won’t happen overnight, but we need to start taking sensible steps toward narcotics regulation, starting with marijuana. Perhaps we could then turn our attention to the wider crisis of substance abuse.
Public enthusiasm for drug prohibition, especially as it relates to marijuana, is steadily eroding. State and local governments are looking for ways to make marijuana medically available and even rolling back enforcement aimed at recreational users. No Presidential nominee from either party since the ‘90’s could say that he’d never smoked pot, and George Bush even waffled on the subject of cocaine use. Marijuana has become far too pervasive for draconian prohibition to make sense.
State and local governments’ piecemeal efforts to ease marijuana prohibition can only create a muddle so long as Federal prohibition remains in place. States’ “medical” marijuana dispensaries and reduced user enforcement merely build islands of criminality, eroding the legitimacy of our laws while leaving the cartels’ business untouched. Anyone visiting a locally legal marijuana dispensary anywhere in the US remains vulnerable to arrest under Federal law and businesses can still be raided by authorities.
Representatives Ron Paul and Barney Frank, the oddest of all odd couples, this summer introduced legislation that would end the Federal prohibition on marijuana by simply removing it from the schedule of controlled substances. The legislation has gone nowhere. The public isn’t ready to treat marijuana as if it were basil. It is still a powerful narcotic deserving reasonable controls.
Voters may, however, be ready for a considered effort to change the way we handle illicit drugs, especially if that effort began with marijuana. The most significant barrier to public support for a reasonable drug regulation scheme is the absence of any commonsense Federal proposal.
What if people could purchase marijuana the way they buy Sudafed? The restrictions would be slightly more strict than the purchase of tequila, but easier than buying Vicodin or Oxycontin. Government would regulate the form, dosage, and delivery in the same manner as over the counter pharmaceuticals. It could only be sold in limited volumes, by a pharmacist, to a verified adult, in a form that meets quality and labeling standards.
What if farmers could be licensed to grow marijuana and sell it into a regulated channel? What if licensed adults could grow it in small quantities for their own use in the same way that people make their own beer or wine?
What impact would such a change have on the local dealers scattered throughout America (hint: how many black-market beer dealers are there in your neighborhood)?
Getting from strict prohibition to regulation would not be quick or easy, but it could be done and the public is ready to support it. Congress would have to amend the Controlled Substances Act, probably creating a sixth category for marijuana. The FDA would then issue regulations for the production, distribution, and possession of substances in that category. Congress would also have to amend the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act and the FDA and DEA would have to set up new controls for the substance passing through the border.
Even if Congress could be persuaded to endorse regulation, it might take years for the FDA and the DEA to work out the details of a new regulatory scheme. It would be up to the FDA, for example, to determine the form marijuana could take on the market. Would it only be available in a pill or could you purchase it in raw form? What versions or strengths would be available?
Would regulation increase marijuana use? Perhaps, but judging by how well and truly drugged up we already are it is tough to imagine that a marginal increase in marijuana use is going to make a meaningful difference. Compared to the tens of thousands of alcohol-related deaths each year in this country, the potential harm of marijuana seems like a marginal concern.
If someone, anyone, died last year from an overdose of marijuana it has escaped attention entirely. The official figure for marijuana overdose deaths appears to be zero. Marijuana use might lead to tragic levels of snack food consumption and escalating demand for Scooby Doo reruns, but compared to the damage we tolerate from alcohol and prescription drugs this might be a price worth paying.
It will not be easy to find the right mix of regulation and availability for narcotics, but we have to start exploring new options. Right now it’s easier for a high school kid to buy weed than it is for them to purchase beer or sinus medicine. Finding a way to make marijuana available through a controlled channel makes more sense than devoting billions of dollars to futile prohibition efforts.
Perhaps the $13 billion we spend each year trying to ban marijuana is a poor investment. When it comes to drug abuse we have bigger fish to fry…and they’re chock full of Prozac.
The demand respect petition:
http://wh.gov/b34
“Demand respect”?? For the life of me I cannot fathom the millions of stoned potheads on the road in addition to the drunkards, all having legally obtained a lethal weapon.
1 million is exactly half of the number of drivers that are high right now. Prohibition is a joke. I can buy weed easier than I can buy Sudafed. This “every grandmother/teenager/serial killer/criminal will get high and stay high” trope is a staple of the common moron.
It does take a wild imagination to fathom millions of dope fiends on a motorway killing spree. Isn’t that the plot of Psychomania ?
What, you’re afraid they might drive so slow that others crash their cars in anger?
Nobody is suggesting legalization of drugged driving. And believe me, I can say from personal experience that it’s not exactly rare right now for someone to smoke a little pot and then get behind the wheel. Prohibition does nothing to prevent this.
The smartest guy I ever met in graduate school smoked a f***in BOATLOAD of weed! He got a teaching assistantship and I didn’t! LEGALIZE IT, DON’T CRITICIZE IT!
Legalizing MJ would put the drug cartels out of business.
But that’s too simple even to consider. Social Conservatives walk among us. Some of them would bring back prohibition if they could.
MJ? Never! Think of the children!
(I couldn’t support legalization where Big Government keeps records of everyone’s MJ purchases – like they do with Sudafed. Republicans sure are schizophrenic when it comes to Big Government.)
No, it would not put the drug cartels out of business; they’d have to find a new cash cow, thought. OC (organized crime) has too many industries into which they can tap, from other illegal drugs to prostitution to illegal gambling operations to kidnapping. There is still money in smuggling tobacco and alcohol products, after all.
That said, it would remove a large chunk of their current income, which would transition to companies like Phillip Morris and so forth. It would probably develop into a market like the beer industry; big guys, little guys, home-brews, et cetera, and provide a much-needed boost to our current tax base.
There are many worthy alternatives to consider, but do “They” truly want to end the Drug War?
Apparently someone changed Obama’s mind about cracking down on medicinal shops. Was it enforcement agencies looking for easy scores of their own?
http://forfeiturereform.com/2011/03/15/montana-raids-drug-war/
I actually assumed the administration’s most recent crackdowns on the marijuana dispensaries was either
1) to distract from the Fast and Furious scandal
or
2) to reward the Mexican drug cartels for informing on that Saudi ambassador assassination plot.
Bring it!
o.o
You think even more like me than I do. Thumbs up.
It is simply insane that our federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug with “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” when not only have several states legalized medical marijuana, but the federal government itself provides medical marijuana to people and has been doing so for 30 years (although no new recipients have been added since 1992).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassionate_Investigational_New_Drug_program
Meanwhile, cocaine is classified as Schedule II with “a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions.” Who is getting prescribed cocaine for medical reasons?
I don’t think taking marijuana out of the purview of the Controlled Substances Act in the Paul-Franks bill would amount to treating it like basil. It would mean treating it like other legalized drugs that are socially detrimental to society but still popular vices – alcohol and tobacco. And with the black market aspect of the existing marijuana trade, it definitely would make more sense to let the ATF deal with this rather than foisting it upon the FDA.
America is really starting to suck.
If you decriminalize drugs, you lose out on the ability to suppress poor voters. Currently they get arrested, get a felony conviction, and can’t vote. Decriminalize drugs, and they will be able to vote.
How likely do you think those poor voters are to support axing Medicaid to pay for more millionaire tax cuts? How about cutting food stamps to eliminate capital gains taxes?
This is why continued prohibition of drugs is a key part of GOP strategy. Right now they are dying from demographics, let the poor vote and they would already be dead.
I think the suppression of voting by the poor is more an unintended consequence – but clearly one party considers it a very beneficial one.
@Bobby McGee: You only lose your right to vote while you are actually imprisoned. When you are released, you get your rights of citizenship back. Your point it still valid, since they are in and out of the system constantly, but it’s worth noting the distinction. Especially since there is a program of disinformation that keeps people from knowing exactly when they get their rights back, and what rights they still have.
When you are released, you get your rights of citizenship back.
You might want to do a little state by state checking before making these blanket statements. It’s not hard to do.
http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=286
In 12 states, for example, you might permanently lose your right to vote.
I guess people don’t remember about the successful purging of many former felons (and lots of people who had the same name as felons that the state couldn’t be bothered to check on) from Florida voting rolls back in 2000 by Jeb Bush and Kathleen Harris. In particular, given the closeness of the election, the removal of many legal voters from the rolls may have been key for keeping the election close enough to require a Supreme Court decision.
Sorry, I had no idea it was a states rights (to oppress) issue. I admit I didn’t do any research whatsoever. I was speaking from my own experience.
And I apologize for the condescending tone. It is one of those things where people in some states don’t realize that other states have completely different laws.
Not to mention the savings to be had if our prison population shrinks because we’ve decriminalized. Less crowding, no early release for real criminals, less strain on the clerical parts, potentially fewer guards… its a good thing, all around.
Most of those sentenced under “three strikes and you’re out” (strongly backed by then President Clinton, a Democrat) law, are sentenced for hard drugs, not marijuana.
And I agree with you that “three strikes and you’re out” was a bad way to deal with drugs. Any drugs.
BTW, Obama’s Justice Department is cracking down on marijuana in California, overriding California’s own laws that treat marijuana more leniently.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/27/us/california-medical-marijuana/
Since Obama is YOUR hero and YOUR role model,
go complain to him.
Believe me – a lot of progressives ARE very upset with this, and are harshly criticizing Obama over it.
However, the Obama Administration has been fairly consistent with upholding laws, even those they disagreed with (eg – continuing to uphold DADT until it was repealed by Congress).
Well, except for laws against torture, where they seem to have executed prosecutorial discretion and not gone after prominent former administration members who openly flaunt their involvement in ordering torture.
Its called “aiding and abetting”, and makes Obama a war criminal too.
Impeach him.
Want to End the Drug War? Regulate Pot. | FrumForum | ADULTCOCAINEADDICTION.COM // Oct 31, 2011 at 6:58 am
[...] Want to End the Drug War? Regulate Pot. | FrumForum Get Help Now [...]
America passed a little-noted milestone in 2009 as drug overdoses outnumbered traffic fatalities for the first time ever to become the primary cause of accidental death. The cause? It wasn’t cocaine or heroin or some terrifying new criminal import. The doubling in drug related deaths over the past decade was driven by prescription drug use.
This could also have occurred because we improved traffic safety, and because people started driving less during the recession.
Yep — in fact, I believe I remember reading that the last year for which stats were released indicated a record low for road fatalities.
This is another case in which social conservatives, shocked at a social ill, go overboard in their restrictions, which are not the most effective way to reduce the ill unless you decide that costs to society aren’t part of your calculations.
The same principle undergirds the movement when it seeks blanket prohibition of alcohol, abortion (and contraception), and welfare.
Why stop at weed? All drugs should be legally available but regulated. This way we save ourselves and the Mexicans a lot of trouble and expense and cut the prison population by half. When you swallowed the camel why gag at the gnat?
Well, the arguments re: pot versus crack cocaine or heroin are quite different.
I am in favor of legalizing them all – in large part because I don’t think the drug laws prove much of a deterrent, because they make bad people very wealthy, and because they make it more difficult for people on the worse stuff to seek and obtain the treatment they need.
But even as one in the “never smoked in my life” category, I consider pot rather harmless, except that it causes people to waste a lot of time and I really dislike the smell of second hand pot smoke.
The biggest risk of pot is that you have to deal with really unsavory characters to obtain it, and you might get busted for possessing it. So let’s eliminate that risk by legalizing it.
It’s a more difficult decision for, say, heroin. Clearly the greatest risk from heroin use isn’t interacting with your local dealer or being arrested – it’s the physical impacts of the substance itself.
You could reasonably set a threshold in society – is this substance more or less harmful than smoking cigarettes? I consider pot to fall well below that line, and crack and heroin above it. Thus, while I personally consider it good public policy to legalize all of them, I have to accept that the prohibitionists of harder substances have a reasonable argument.
I don’t think anyone has a reasonable argument for keeping pot illegal.
Illegality drives the high cost, which drives the real harm being done by all of these drugs. Make them legal and make sure they stay cheap, and we can allow folks to self destruct with as little collateral damage as possible. That’s as close to a victory as we’ll ever see in a war on drugs.
I can’t say I’m a expert on the subject but somehow I find it difficult believe that smoking large quantities of weed isn’t going to have a negative effect on you physically, socially and economically.
How is that relevant? Drinking too much alcohol has demonstrably negative health effects too. Heck, so does eating too much sugar and watching too much TV. The list of things which we are allowed to do but which might hurt us in excess is not a short one.
Tylenol overdoses kill more people than pot, yet it is available anywhere, unlimited.
No Presidential nominee from either party since the ‘90’s could say that he’d never smoked pot,
Seriously? John McCain?
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that one.
A few things.
1. Even though I don’t smoke anything (or injest mj in any form) I don’t know of any reason why alcohol should be legal and marijuana illegal. Alcohol is far more addictive and dangerous.
2. I don’t see how legalization of marijuana ends the drugs wars. There would still be a host of other drugs that are dangerous that would still be illegal.
1) Marijuana is much more dangerous than alcohol. Its primary risk factors are arrest and possible loss of employment and imprisonment.
2) Marijuana is believed to represent well over half of the business of the drug cartels. It’s probably wrong to say that legalizing MJ would “put the cartels out of business,” but it would definitely put a hurt on their bottom line. Don’t you agree? And I don’t see pot smokers rushing out to use meth or heroin when pot is legalized.
A Rand study indicated that marijuana accounts for 15-26 percent of gross drug export revenues of Mexican drug- trafficking organizations.
Want to End the Drug War? Regulate Pot. | FrumForum | COCAINEABUSERECOVERY.COM // Oct 31, 2011 at 11:26 am
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It occurs to me that the benefits of marijuana could outweigh its downsides in and of itself. I am certainly of the opinion that my life is better with whiskey than without it, and possibly not just based on ‘how I feel’ at the time. It’s rather linear to assume there are no social benefits to either alcohol or marijuana.
Want to End the Drug War? Regulate Pot. | FrumForum | COCAINEREHABILITATIONPROGRAM.COM // Oct 31, 2011 at 12:37 pm
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So I’ll be a contrarian here.
First, the author’s first 2 paragraphs make the point that access to legally regulated drugs are a cause (the cause?) of drug deaths now being the number one cause of accidental deaths – and then making the argument that we ought to legalize drugs, starting with Marijuana.
That’s really the argument? Legal drugs create more deaths so legalize pot? What did I miss in the argument?
I’m torn about legalizing pot (I don’t inhale – well except when I’m at a concert in sitting in the top row, I have been known to breathe deeply
).
I’m all for medical marijuana, and if I had a disease and pot brought relief I would have no qualms about using and think anyone else should be able to as well. However, I voted against CA measure for medical MJ because it was clearly written so anyone could get pot. A couple months ago I took my young kids to Venice Beach. There were about a dozen medical marijuana shops there with a doctor who would write you a prescription if you had; upset stomach, headaches, toothache, flu-like symptoms, etc., etc. If your big toe hurt, you could pay $40 and get a prescription (then the cost to buy your pot).
Alcohol is a good benchmark. Obviously making it illegal did not work – but I wonder how many accidental deaths alcohol is linked to (probably more than either drug deaths or traffic accidents – as it’s a component in many of those, plus gun deaths, etc.). If pot becomes more widely available, you will have pot related deaths.
The author talks about creating whole new classification for pot, licensing growers, regulating them, new gov’t bureaucracy, that doesn’t sound like a very Conservative position to me. And, if you legalize pot across the board, what’s next? Meth? Cocaine? LSD, Heroin?
I haven’t yet heard a legalization plan that I can support, but I am willing to listen.
“If pot becomes more widely available, you will have pot related deaths.”
Don’t we have pot related deaths now then either as a consequence of using the drug itself or as collateral damage from the trade?
Otto: Yes we do have collateral deaths (I was responding to the article’s assertion that there were not OD deaths from pot).
I didn’t say my viewpoint was rational and I’m conflicted. I think there is a place for MJ in our society. Just not sure what that is and I have concerns that it hasn’t been thought through in 20 years we’ll be saying “oops”. As noted, prohibition with alcohol didn’t work. Conversely you could argue that alcohol may be the biggest contributor to all accidental deaths in this country (I don’t have statistics to back it up, but I’m guessing it’s close). Given perhaps 20,000 alcohol related deaths per year, do we really want to legalize pot without thinking through the consequences?
And/or from a Libertarian point of view, do we want to regulate it with a raft of new laws? Pot smokers (including in my family), want unfettered access as to who they buy their weed from, where and where they can smoke it, but most people, including Chris Ladd are not suggesting that.
CA’s solution was a wink & nod – claim an ailment and get your doobie. I’d rather a more honest solution.
If pot becomes more widely available, you will have pot related deaths…And, if you legalize pot across the board, what’s next? Meth? Cocaine? LSD, Heroin?
As you and the article noted, there are a significant number of deaths linked to alcohol use each year, but we don’t go back to the mistake of prohibition. Why? Because the cost of the enforcement framework and the collateral damage it causes is so much greater than the cost of the irresponsibility of a relative few. I’m of the mind that adults should be able to make an informed choice on what goes into their body and that we should treat whatever consequences that follow like we do most other things – educate and PSA them before; arrest, charge and convict after. You’re not going to legislate your way into stopping people from doing stupid things, and when the activity itself does not cause another person direct harm, I think it’s generally foolish to try.
“we don’t go back to prohibition … Because the cost of the enforcement framework and the collateral damage it causes is so much greater than the cost of the irresponsibility of a relative few.”
Not sure I agree with this. Like with cigarettes, what are the true costs of alcohol? According to the CDC preliminary 2009 shows that alcohol induced deaths were 24,263. Also shows motor vehicle deaths at 36,057 and does not state if the alcohol related motor vehicle deaths are included in the alcohol figures. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf.
Throw in costs related to property damage, loss of productivity at work (and in divorce, family trouble, etc.) plus the cost of alcohol consumption. Excessive (binge) drinking was estimated to cost the US economy over 200 Billion in 2006.http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/10/17/the-high-costs-of-drinking-too-much/.
My point is, do we really know the long term effects of legalizing marijuana? It’s a polarizing issue so it’s hard to have an honest discussion about.
According to the numbers you quoted, alcohol-related deaths only account for 1.4% of all deaths, which is lower than falls, suicide by firearm, and leukemia among many others. And when considering the overall costs, you would have to compare it to both the prohibition scenario, in which opportunity and social costs would be much high, and other similar issues of choice. What’s the cost of poor diet and lack of exercise and should the government be mandating what can and can’t be done or what must be done? Is not the proper role of the government to basically tax risky behaviors in order to appropriately off-set their social costs? The government has an interest in encouraging people not to engage in risky or unhealthy behaviors, but absolutely forbidding them from doing so when there is no direct harm to another person is both wrong and unwise.
As to long-term effects, the lack of usable examples makes this question very difficult to answer. The Netherlands has seemed to have a generally acceptable experience with it’s regulation scheme, so I think there’s a workable way to account for the potential problems as we do alcohol and cigarettes (though curiously not caffine). As far as I’ve heard, their greatest problem has been drug tourism, i.e. the irresponsibility encouraged by other prohibition schemes.
I haven’t yet heard a legalization plan that I can support
I’d say our alcohol policy provides a very solid starting point, no? Age limits, potency regulations, licensure for production and sale, the whole bit. Seems pretty appropriate to me.
I swear it’s just not working when I hit that reply button….
Another Nixon/Reagan failure.
Reagan’s Iran-Contra is peddling cocaine into the United States during his Presidency, you know the War on Drugs failed.
There is a way to ensure the federal government doesn’t raid any more medical marijuana dispensaries. We need to remove its power via legislation. Pass H.R. 2306 and limit the federal government’s power to enforcing only cross-border trafficking. Regardless of how you stand on the marijuana debate we can all agree it should be left up to the states and the federal crackdown is an abuse that California should not have to tolerate.
Tell your representatives -> http://pvox.co/CdiFqY
“[Prohibition] attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.” – Abraham Lincoln