NCJ Number
137355
Journal
Public Interest (1990) Pages: 28-42
Date Published
1990
Length
15 pages
Annotation
An attempt is made to examine the various drug legalization options, to show the kind of policy choices each would entail, and to identify serious problems of implementation.
Abstract
To advance the drug legalization debate, focus is on the costs of legalization in practice rather than in principle. Models proposed by legalization advocates include lifting the criminal prohibitions on manufacture, distribution, sale, possession, and use of all mood- and mind-altering drugs and thereby allow them to be manufactured and marketed as freely as alcohol and cigarettes; implementing a government-regulated system; or adopting a public health system model. Advocates of drug legalization hypothesize that by legalizing all drugs and reducing their cost, the drug problem will decline if not disappear. Many fail to ask critical questions: what is meant by legalization; how would legalization work; and how would it affect key institutions. Possibly the most significant negative effect of the current legalization debate is that it diverts time, resources, and attention from the issue of ways to reform the war on drugs in order to reduce drug use more effectively and to minimize social and economic costs while preserving civil liberties. 12 footnotes