{"id":626,"date":"2018-09-02T19:40:44","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T02:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/?page_id=626"},"modified":"2025-07-20T10:02:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T17:02:01","slug":"legalizing-drugs-2006","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bruceramsey.net\/index.php\/legalizing-drugs-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Legalizing Drugs (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The libertarian position on illegal drugs is to legalize them. It\u2019s a simple answer, and in regard to marijuana I agreed with it. In late 2005 I attended a conference on drug legalization, and came back full of questions and doubts. I wrote about it for Liberty, March 2006.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cExit Strategy for the War on Drugs.\u201d That was the name of the conference on Dec. 1 and 2, 2005, in Seattle. Washington is a \u201cblue\u201d state that has approved a ballot initiative to allow marijuana to medical patients. Seattle is a deep-blue city that voted nearly 80 percent for John Kerry, and before him for Al Gore, and also voted, against the advice of its city attorney, to reduce marijuana possession to the lowest priority of police work. Seattle is a logical place to air the question: If not a war on drugs, then what?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The conference was put on by the King County Bar Association, which for several years has had a project to end the war on drugs. In 2001 the Bar Association adopted four principles for the regarding currently banned recreational drugs. I summarize them:<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Drug policy should create \u201cno more harm than the use of the drugs themselves;\u201d<\/span><\/p>

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>It should address \u201cthe underlying causes and the resulting harms\u201d instead of using police and jails;<\/span><\/p>

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u201cThe state should regulate drugs in a manner that recognizes citizens\u2019 individual liberties while answering the need to preserve public health, public safety and public order, especially providing compassionate treatment to those in need;\u201d and<\/span><\/p>

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>It should not waste the taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 You can see the libertarian principle, and some fences around it.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It was not a conference of libertarians, but mainly of liberals; most of them knew the libertarian answer about drugs and mostly they found it unsatisfying. Lawyer Kate Pflaumer, who was appointed by President Clinton to be U.S. Attorney in Seattle, was one of several who explicitly said the advocates had to get beyond the libertarian argument. \u201cWe have to deal with kids, expanded use and social harms,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0do\u00a0<\/i>have to deal with these things, at least if we are to be part of the discussion. It is not enough to imagine a self-responsible adult with the drug in hand \u2014 and, usually a drug that is not dangerous if used properly. That, generally, is what the libertarian imagines, when he asks: What business is it of the state to forbid this adult from using this drug? By what right, and to what end, does the state force the user into a steel cage?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That way of putting the question is a neat way of illustrating a libertarian idea. But let\u2019s admit: it\u2019s a set-up, designed to reach a predetermined conclusion. It assumes we are dealing with an adult. It assumes some level of rationality and free choice. It may also assume some level of safety, if we care about safety (which people\u00a0do\u00a0<\/i>care about). It also assumes the drug is in hand, and that it arrived there through some non-interesting process.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All of these assumptions are hazardous. Drug users are not all adults, and a regime of freedom for adults may not imply freedom for non-adults. Drug users start by making a free choice, but once certain choices are made, they may be difficult to unmake. Not impossible, but difficult. Some drugs are not too hazardous, and some are very hazardous.<\/span><\/p>

Consider the question of how the drug arrives in the user\u2019s hand. Does he buy it from a lawful company \u2014 that is, a company with an address, corporate officers and publicly identifiable owners? A company with contracts, obligations, licensing agreements, commercial insurance and legal liability? A company with employees, and a community image to maintain? A company subject to institutional oversight, governmental or otherwise? Can you imagine a pharmaceutical company producing commercial versions of today\u2019s illegal drugs? Marijuana? Cocaine? Heroin? LSD? Magic mushrooms? Ecstasy? Crack? Meth?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe need a legal framework for drugs,\u201d a man said, \u201cbecause what we have on the street is lawlessness.\u201d Accept that. But what sort of framework? The one we use for OxyContin? Aspirin? Dill pickles?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During my time at the conference \u2014 and I attended about half of it, over two days \u2014 the suggested legal framework for heroin and drugs of similar potency was that they would be dispensed by the government. (For unique U.S. reasons,\u00a0state\u00a0<\/i>government.) Government dispensing has been tried before. Britain has done it with heroin in a small way since the 1920s and Switzerland has done it recently.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Peter Reuter, professor of criminology at the University of Maryland, presented the Swiss example. It was of 1,000 heroin injectors. They were given up to three doses a day, and allowed to use heavy doses (500-600 mg\/day), which they tended to do. One result was a sharp reduction in crime. Also, more injectors found work: the share of the enrolled addicts with jobs (presumably lawful jobs) increased from 14% to 32%. The mortality rate fell from 2%-3% to about 1% per year. Most of the addicts stayed addicted, though some applied for a dry-out.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These were experiments \u2014 islands in a sea of prohibition. The Swiss made heroin available only to experienced injectors. So did the British. In each place there were others using the drugs illegally \u2014 in fact, many more others than were using them with permission.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Instead of cops and wardens, most speakers at the conference thought, heroin should be handled by doctors and social workers. But government would still involve itself. It might require that drugs be packaged a certain way, with warning labels; that the drugs be of a certain dose and purity; that the users not be from out of state; that they sign forms and be registered; that they have seen a doctor; that their consumption be monitored by the government, and so on.<\/span><\/p>

Said Roger Goodman, head of the King County Bar Association\u2019s Drug Policy Project, \u201cWe\u2019re talking about creating a\u00a0healthy society<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Is heroin use healthy? Vancouver, B.C., has the most open drug scene in North America, with several thousand heroin addicts in the East End. The scene is probably less unhealthy than the same amount of heroin use entirely underground, but healthy it is not. Mark Haden, clinical supervisor at Vancouver Coastal Health, said the addicts are \u201can enormously sick population,\u201d with about one-third of the users infected with HIV and \u201calmost universal hep-C.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I asked one of the Canadians about the feces problem. I had seen reports on a local weblog that the Vancouver junkies had been crapping in public, creating a sanitary problem. What the cause of that? I asked.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cVegetable matter,\u201d the Canadian said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Huh?<\/span><\/p>

\u201cFood.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

I stared at him.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cThere are no public toilets. They have no place to go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Oh. On one level, it was common sense. But, I thought, if the addicts make a mess, why do we have to conclude it\u2019s because they haven\u2019t been given enough free stuff? The public authorities are expected to supply them free heroin, free sterile needles and free \u201csafe injection sites\u201d with polite, nonjudgmental government overseers \u2014 and then face the complaint that there are no free toilets.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

At the conference, most of the talk of legalizing was about marijuana, and even in this anti-drug-war crowd the attitudes were not as permissive as you might expect.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Deborah Small, executive director of a group in New York called Break the Chains, Communities of Color and the War on Drugs, was one of the most left-wing of the speakers. Her first criticism of the drug laws was that they were biased against the poor and black. She is black. She was fearful of capitalism; her No. 1 thought about managing legal drugs, including marijuana, was not to let the corporations have them. \u201cThe idea of corporate control is troubling to me,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI personally agree with that,\u201d said Goodman of the King County Bar Association, adding that he thought it was a mistake to allow branded alcoholic drinks after Prohibition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Jeff Haley of the Drug Policy Foundation of Washington said the problem with commercialism is that when money was being made, people had an incentive to sell. You could ban advertising \u2014 which most of the attendees, I think, assumed would be done with any legalized drug \u2014 but if the salesmen had a monetary incentive, they would sell. And that would still be bad. \u201cPeople who are selling need to have no incentive to sell,\u201d Haley said. \u201cThe only way we could think of to do that is to make these people state employees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

There was a ripple of laughter at that.<\/span><\/p>

I was thinking of the unhappy prospect of turning brewing into a government monopoly. In my college days a local brewery had put out generic beer \u2014 \u201cBEER\u201d brand, black lettering on a plain white label. That had been the closest thing to government beer produced here, and it had tasted pretty bad. A Canadian in the audience stood up and told a similar story about marijuana. His government had grown it in old mine tunnels for the medical users, and it was \u201cutterly unappealing.\u201d He warned the group not to design \u201ca system of distributing things people won\u2019t want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Kris Nyrop of Street Outreach Services, Seattle, objected to the no-brands idea. \u201cAs a tobacco user, I like having choice in brands,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m afraid that we\u2019re heading too close to paternalism in our conversation here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Many of these people were not against paternalism, as such. They wanted paternalism with a human face, or at least a face that was not a cop.<\/span><\/p>

As for the worry about capitalism creating an incentive to push drugs, the Canadian reminded the audience that social programs had become an industry as well. Government has an economic incentive to push interdiction, controls, jails \u2014 and social work, too. \u201cWherever there\u2019s money involved, and it is tied to jobs, it introduces an incentive,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>