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The 'War on Drugs' is a dismal failure, so why won’t our politicians look at the alternative, legalising recreational drug use?
Given the horrendous waste and failure of the prohibitionist regime governing drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin, not to mention the terrible violence and corruption that the illegal trade in each has created, you'd imagine that drug legalisation would be a hotter topic than it currently is. Yet legalising drugs is what American politicians call 'a third rail' issue - one that instantly kills the career of anyone who even suggests it.
In the course of researching The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World, I struggled to find a cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical legal market in drugs. More surprisingly, I also struggled to find an analysis of the pros and cons of banning them. A legal market in addictive drugs is widely judged to be a self-evidently stupid idea, unless of course, you enjoy the prospect of mass drug addiction. It must have been with such permissive airheads in mind that US Congressman Larry Smith once said: "The most dangerous people in America are those who believe in legalising drugs. They are traitors."
Legalising drugs is a ‘third rail’ issue - a career-killer for anyone who suggests it
Mark Kleiman, author of Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results, argues that "freely available cocaine is likely to give rise to self-destructive habits for an unacceptably large proportion of users". But how addictive is cocaine? A study of Dutch cocaine users conducted in 1993 found that only six per cent of users had problems controlling their consumption of the drug. Most of the remaining 94 per cent reported that their cocaine use tailed off of its own accord, usually after a three year 'cocaine career', as they lost interest, had children or got better jobs.
So how might a legal market in cocaine affect the six per cent of cocaine users who do become dependent on the drug? Many of the 147 people in England and Wales who died a 'cocaine-related' death in 2004 were drunk when they died. But most were injecting cocaine in conjunction with heroin and died because they were unable to judge the purity of the drug they were injecting. Metaphorically speaking, they died because they drank a pint of whisky thinking it was beer. If cocaine production and distribution were legalised and regulated, users would have access to pure cocaine, as well as effective drug education and help for those who needed it, none of which your average street dealer has any interest in supplying.
But the great unknowable is how the vast majority of people who do not take illegal cocaine would respond to a legal supply of hard drugs. Would they be more likely to take them if they were legal? A survey conducted in Arlington, Virginia asked just that. Only one per cent of those polled said that they would. 'Drug warriors' tend to assume that the law is the only thing deterring a global orgy of cocaine use. But the impact of the law on the prevalence of drug taking has been hugely exaggerated. Fickle fashion seems to be a much more important factor.
Since the Portuguese government decriminalised the possession of drugs for personal use in 2001, recreational cocaine use has indeed gone up. But much of that increase can be attributed to Portugal's role as entry point to the booming European cocaine market from Colombia. What is most striking about the Portuguese experiment is that drug-related health problems have been reduced, there are fewer problematic users and more of those still dependent on hard drugs are now in work, which is probably the best antidote to any drug habit.
Since Portugal decriminalised drugs, health problems have been reduced
So what's not to like about a controlled legal market in hard drugs? For those inclined to see hard drug use as morally wrong, the answer is: 'everything'. But for the growing numbers of Europeans who see the problem not as drug use per se, but drug addiction, a legal market in drugs like cocaine would allow much tighter control over who takes them, where they take them and how much they know about them than the current gang-ridden anarchy.
Still not convinced? Consider this: we currently have a legal right to drink ourselves into a stupor. Common sense, an understanding of the potential dangers of alcohol and the need to get up and go to work tomorrow ensure that most of us choose not to exercise that right. Legalise cocaine and of course plenty of people will go on a cocaine-fuelled bender. But the novelty will soon wear off. Is there any reason to believe that legal cocaine need be any more (or less) of a problem than legal whiskey? It certainly couldn't be worse than the political paralysis that passes for drug policy today.
The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took over the World by Tom Feiling is published by Penguin Books, price £9.99 ·
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Comments
Interesting that Mad Mel Phillips' last before going on leave was the usual anti drug rant but virtually ALL the comments took her to task, disagreement being virtually unknown on that sheltered workshop for the terminally insane. Yet here the irrational have come out of the woodwork. What was the last article to have this many comments and so incoherently ideological to boot?
People who think that hardcore drugs are to legalized are not aware of the real cause for not vouching to do so ...its the money that is the main reason that they dont want countries to be able to earn so much money that they can run their econmies from it. IT's THE MONEY ....THAT PAINS THE USA AND OTHERS ..
"Legalising drugs" is a simplistic formula that fails to take on board the heterogeneous and constantly-developing field of mind-altering substances.
To focus on cocaine, you note that many people who die after having used cocaine have been drinking: cocaine plus alcohol create a third substance called coca-ethylene, which is toxic to both the liver and the heart. Taking cocaine also enables one to ingest amounts of alcohol far greater than would normally cause loss of consciousness, leading to the obvious health risks of liver problems and Korsakov's disease.
You also refer to people mixing cocaine and heroin. This is called "snowballing" - the heroin mitigates the cocaine high so that the user isn't climbing the walls, and after-effects of cocaine and heroin are both relieved somewhat. So do we then legalise heroin as well? Pimps would love this - they tend now to try to get girls hooked on crack (cocaine rendered for smoking) first, as this increases risk-taking behaviour - which widens the client field and earning potential - and they seek surcease in heroin.
Many people would indulge in cocaine-fuelled benders were it legalised, which would make the madness of the world's stock exchanges, already stimulant-fuelled, even worse. Some wouldn't recover from this for the years it takes to learn that the orgasmic quality of the first high is often never recaptured.
Where I agree with you is that political paralysis prevails in the area of governmental drugs policies. The answer, however, is not to retreat, but to recognise that the problems of both cocaine and heroin use will never be solved within the borders of Great Britain, and participate in joint foreign policy strategies accordingly.
http://draughtyoldfentales.blogspot.com/2009/06/cocaine.html
But, allan kessing, we already have an acknowledged problem of low priced drugs.
I refer to the price of alcohol, which is considered far too low, resulting in our unpleasant and dangerous binge-drinking culture. Dangerous not only for the imbiber, but also for any innocent (or not so innocent) person passing by.
I really don't think that those same (or similar) people can be relied upon to be moderate in their usage of an even more powerful drug.
Also, if the price is to be set too low, how are the "effective drug education and help for those who needed it" going to be funded?
Further, how long would it be before the powers that be decided that drugs could be another nice little earner for the tax man. Up goes the price, up goes the low level crime rate.
We already have a problem with tobacco and alcohol, legalised hard drugs will also become a problem, but one which will make the other two seem as nothing.
KeithS - if drugs were legal they would, ipso facto be a fraction of the current, criminally set price. ie medicinal heroin is about one euro per gram, which would keep the most addicted person replete for a week. The only reason NOT to give it to addicts is the puritan's fear that someone is getting 'unearned' (sic!) pleasure which their constipated psyches won't allow them so why should anyone else have fun. HL Mencken defined a puritan as someone who lives in terror that someone somewhere is enjoying themselves.
Really the greatest fear should be the vast amount of illicit money (that has regularly compromised South American politicians and enforcement agencies) that can be earned. The thin end of the wedge was recently demonstrated in the recent case of the WREN trafficking 13Kg of cocaine even here. There is no time to lose, a half way house would be to zone areas within cities where trade and usage may be carried out legally, albeit taxed highly as well. Otherwise we are going to end up with top level politicians, newspapermen and police all making 'detours' to South London ! The only way to match the resources of the drug barons now is to put in equally huge amounts into drug enforcement agancies which can come from the legal drug trade. Its a radical out of the box solution but there is no other way - the drug trade is actually the new weapon of the terrorists.
Whilst legalisation may curb the "Mr. Bigs" of the drug trade, I feel it will do little to curb the low level crime associated with drugs. Addicts are still addicts, however they obtain their addictive drugs. If they are prepared to rob, maim and kill to obtain money for their fix now, they will still do so when the drug is legal.
Or is it being suggested that we give the drugs to addicts as required?
If people could buy drugs cheaply and conveniently from their local shops or supermarkets I think the dealers' dominance of the supply would disappear and associated crime reduce. The same could be true for prostitution with a consequent reduction in people trafficking.
The connection between the flourishing of organized crime and the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (Prohibition, the only amendment which has been repealed ever since) is well known. The situation is the same with drugs. The business lost by the effectuation of the Twenty-first Amendment has been reestablished with the drug industry. And it is much more than the alcohol business was. It can keep up not only the "world wide web" of organized crime, but terrorist networks and oppressive, tyrannic regimes too. So taking everything together the lobby power against legalizing hard drugs must be overwhelmingly stronger than of the supporters.
Well argued points, but limited argument, all drugs should be decriminalised worldwide. The damage done by the 'war on drugs' isn't just to users in the rich world, and the criminals who profit from the trade are global; wars are fought over drugs, poor countries from which drugs like cocaine and heroin come are blighted by gangs and corruption, when a legal trade would benefit them with taxes. Counting the police manpower wasted on carrying on the war on drugs, the costs of imprisonment, and the wasted lives, the costs of the war on drugs are truly massive. Most societies cope with alcohol which is far more damaging than any other drug, and tax revenues are substantial; all the proceeds from other drug sales go to organised crime. So a no brainer, which is why no-brains are the only people who don't get it, but prat on and on as if it's a moral question - which merely shows how brainwashed they are. Politicians, being whores reliant on votes for their jobs, are caught in fear that they will lose out if they ever suggest discussing the subject, such is the fear factor engendered by the fascists who want to control everything others do. Tom Sutcliffe: there is no scientific evidence that links cannabis to schizophrenia, it is all hearsay [usually from parents desperate to find something else to blame rather than their parenting] Schizophrenia first occurs in the teens, there's therefore a good chance that some teenagers experimenting with cannabis will go on to become schizophrenic, that's not a causal link. Others may self medicate with cannabis BECAUSE they are experiencing schizophrenic symptoms, and find that these are moderated by it. The rest of your post was good. As for the NHS red herring; one could argue that virtually all dis-ease is caused by environment or lifestyle; viz bowel cancer from eating lots of red meat, heart disease from overeating and the resultant obesity, and so on. There's no reason why other recreational drugs should be singled out any more than alcohol, which is the single biggest drain on the NHS as well as society at large. The Victorians had no restrictions on drugs such as opium [laudanum] and cocaine yet their society didn't fall apart, but instead achieved quite a lot. And of course, indiginous cultures have used cannabis for many thousands of years without any ill effect. This whole situation emanated from America as so much that's wrong with modern society, a flawed death-and violence-worshipping country founded on genocide and slavery and full of the most extreme religious flakeys the world has ever seen. The power of the US means it has bullied every other country to go down the same insane path of control. How many peaceful, creative, non-violent people are languishing in US prisons on marijuana changes that took away their lives?
Re: @Tom Sutcliffe
We should remember that any delayed drug related problems we are now learning about are the consequences of behaviour before we knew of the likely consequences. Perhaps we have learnt from our mistakes.
Legalising drugs might reduce their abuse.
I might be willing to tolerate more schizophrenia...if associated benefits were great enough....perhaps less women forced into prostitution, less Baby P's etc.
Given drug production is cheap, easy and not patent protected I doubt anyone could get rich from it. It would be a good case for a nationalised industry.
I think many people are deterred from driving at 90 m.p.h. on motorways. I use the M25 and M1 fairly often. I see very few people travelling at 90 (I pass more than pass me, at lower than that).
I agree we must keep the NHS for all. Taxes on (some)potentially dangerous activities mean (some) risk takers pay for their own insurance (except bloody*** footballers who clog up A&E on Saturdays!)
***through injury.
The arguments in favour of legalising all drug use are indeed very powerful. In practical terms, however, it is difficult to see any more countries moving down that road - mainly because of the growing evidence that e.g. excessive use of marijuana in the late teens has sadly led to some incidence of marijuana-related schizophrenic breakdown. It's true that binge-drinking among the young (which surely we would prefer to see reduced) only occasionally leads to really early death from alcoholism, and that the process of alcoholic decline is usually less noxious and blatantly destructive than schizophrenia. But nobody who has had to cope with schizophrenics at any age would wish to see any changes in the law that led to an increase in this terribly desocialising and disabling condition. Marijuana and cocaine are so readily obtainable in the UK that the only result of legalising them would probably be economic: the chance for some commercial organisations to get rich, and less possibility for criminals to have the whole scene to themselves. The difference between legal and illegal is less significant than what the police actually do on the ground without saying too much publicly about it. Nobody is deterred from driving at 90mph on motorways by the fact that it is illegal: but the police seldom bother to try and catch any drivers unless they are doing over the ton. Literal-minded Brits like to see the structure of the law as immutable and inherently virtuous. But most of the rest of the world understand that laws are only part of the process of social control. The idea that drug-related conditions should cease to be treated by the NHS is extremely dubious. A health service that is national and taxpayer-funded surely does not limit its availability to those who it regards as "insured", as if one needs to read the small print about what is covered. The NHS is proud to belong to us all and to deal with all our ailments from cradle to the grave. Isn't that the crucial principle - not some puritanical crap about people doing themselves mischief of their own free-will, and therefore being responsible for their condition. You could argue stupid ill-informed people are responsible for their own ignorance, and beautiful women are responsible for being raped since their condition of its nature attracts attention from possible rapists. Do those who use drugs choose to be addicted? Is drug use invariably addictive? Nicotine is highly addictive but not for all. Is it a responsible choice that one may make to choose to suffer from an addictive personality? If free medical help is limited to those who can prove their condition was not their "fault", there won't be an NHS for anybody.
Considering that politicians can't even get their tiny minds to consider the least harmful, non-addicitive, (potentially) cheapest euphoriant available, cannabis, the chances of their waking up about drugs in general is zero.
Most ironic is that, until 1971, pure cocaine & heroin was available on prescription in the UK and had precisely NO illegal trade. Overnight, Dixon St supplied the need when it became restricted, due entirely to US pressure during one of the (then) traditional Sterling crises, "Ban it or no IMF bailout".
Wilson resisted pressure to send troops to Vietnam but Callaghan had neither the brains nor balls to stick to sound principle.
Whilst I have no wish to see people suffer, even when their suffering is self inflicted, I am more concerned with the wider effects of an *illegal* trade in drugs...international gangs, shoplifting, street crime etc. No doubt the big-boys could find other illegal ways to make a living, but if we took away their preferred trade (a very lucrative one) it must make it tougher for them.
The young women who were murdered in Ipswich a few years ago were easy targets because they needed to pay for drugs. I'm sure many of the women who end up in circumstances like theirs are victims of their own silliness, nothing worse, and someone else's (a dealer's) evil. Much time is taken up in UK courts dealing with drug related crime and many of the people in our prisons are there for the same. I don't know if drug abuse is the root cause of many social ills or a consequence...probably it is circular...but it seems ending the proftability (for a few, many low level traders live miserable lives) of drug dealing might have many benefits. If we tried legalisation we could always change our minds later..if the world tried it would destroy the dealers' infrastructure, at least for a while, so even a failed experiment might prove a winner over time.
I have argued in favour of legalising drugs for many years. A consistent strength and quality could be ensured and the drugs marketed through newsagents, tobaconnists, pharmacies and supermarkets and any retailer who will carry the stock. All should carry a health warning and a substantial tax to be used by the government to contribute towards the cost of any future treatment. All drug treatment programmes should cease to be funded by the NHS and the police instructed to discontinue stopping and prosecuting them unless they commit some other crime. this would release police for other duties. I should have thought G. Brown would have regarded it as a good tax earner and make the drug traffikers very sick indeed.