PREDICTABLE RESULTS FROM OUR WAR ON DRUGS

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: 450

In response to last week’s 2 Paragraphs edition about my recently-deceased friend Steve Downing and both of our involvements in Drug Policy Reform, another truly great friend of mine, who is intelligent, caring and thoughtful, wrote to me as follows: “But I kept thinking I do NOT want a society where people are free to make money selling fentanyl to 18 year olds.”

I truly understand that point of view, and know that many people share it. But please think of it this way: creating and selling illicit drugs like fentanyl are a direct result of having made them illegal. Many people either died or went blind by drinking bootleg alcohol (White Lightning) during Alcohol Prohibition, but that huge problem went away almost overnight with its repeal. Why? Because when alcohol was again regulated and controlled by the government, illicit sellers like Al Capone and many others quickly lost their market, and the critical program of quality control of the product was resumed. So when thinking about and discussing this important issue, please consider the following two points:

First, If there is a demand for a product, the demand will be met by people who are prepared to take Criminal Justice risks in exchange for making large amounts of (untaxed) money; and,

Second, Virtually no one in our country has died from an overdose of fentanyl; they have died from fentanyl poisoning – because, first, they do not know that it is there or, second, what they are taking today looks like what they took yesterday but, unbeknownst to them, it is four times stronger, and they die!

So what should we do? Allow these various mind-altering and sometimes addicting drugs to be prescribed by a medical doctor who specializes in addiction medicine. That way the users will, first of all, know what they are ingesting, including its strength and, secondly, receive counseling about how to live a better and healthier life either by cutting back on their use, or by switching to less unhealthy drugs. I believe that, in effect, that will substantially reduce people’s ingestion of fentanyl as well as other harmful drugs, because few people want to use those if they have viable alternatives. Is that approach perfect? Of course not because life is complicated and there will always be problems. But, just like we now look back at the failed approach of Alcohol Prohibition, some day (hopefully soon) we will look back at the failed approach of Drug Prohibition as well, and see a large decrease of the problem use of drugs, as well as seeing that the financial success of Drug Cartels and other illicit dealers be substantially reduced!

(Did you hear about the man who took his wife to an office Holiday Party? Since she did not know anyone there he kept introducing her. But when one co-worker said “Oh, you must be the wife,” she glared at her husband and said: “What, you have a wife?!)