NCJ Number
157848
Journal
Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1978) Pages: 1-7
Date Published
1978
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the social benefits and costs of drug control laws concludes that increasingly the severity of the control laws ultimately results in costs that outweigh benefits and that both benefits and costs must be assessed in determining the optimum levels of control.
Abstract
Drug consumption is an unusual cultural phenomenon in that it receives both reverence or abhorrence and is regarded as both healer and destroyer. Although nonmedical drug use can unquestionably be detrimental to the individual, as both alcoholism, smoking, heroin addiction, and the consequences of other drug use make clear, nonmedical drug use does not invariably lead to damage, particularly among those who use drugs intermittently or in modest doses. While drug control laws tend to reduce the incidence of drug use, their enforcement has costs to society. Among the most obvious costs is the development of underground markets in drugs and the criminalization of drug users. Modest control laws can substantially reduce drug use without incurring serious social costs. However, increasing the severity of control laws adds less and less to the benefits achieved and more and more to the costs to society. Therefore, changes should be gradual, carefully considered, and guided not only by what drugs may do but also by what drug laws may do. 6 references