"Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense."
It's kinda like the meaning of life though: "have kids" is a perfectly reasonable explaination for ones "purpose" in life. However it's so boring and straight forward that people continue to seek the "real answer".
I'd disagree that the meaning of life is to have kids. Instead it seems like its just the best approximate solution to not to dying - pass on your DNA. To me the meaning of life is just to accept that you are alive and enjoy it as much as you can (which may involve trying to live as long as possible). Oh lord I just looked back at the title of this article - that's not what I'm suggesting :)
"I'd disagree that the meaning of life is to have kids."
It might very well be "to get high" ;)
A value in re-asserting a broad, cross-cultural interest in getting high is that it helps demystify it, helps people realize that the drive to get high it is not because of week will or moral turpitude or twisted genes.
It, like the desire to have kids, is simple a common, basic, human desire.
The example of LSD's fall from popularity is correct as far as it goes, but the LSD market was so distorted that it's a poor example. The DEA couldn't get a handle on it when it was hot (I recall reading a policymaker summary complaining that LSD dealers seemed largely unmotivated by money and were thus hard to track by normal means) and a single supplier who produced `90% of global supply isn't exactly normal either.
I do agree with the underlying premise of the article that a well-informed public is likely to produce more users but fewer casualties.
I am in Chihuahua Mexico. Two years ago this used to be a very pleasant city but now it has become really violent. The death toll is about 900 people just in the state and just in this year. This very serious situation has made me change my position on drugs. The gun fire is doing more damage than the drugs themselves. If people decide to damage their lives by using drugs it is their choice and it is their problem. But with this war in drugs a lot of people that have nothing to do with them are suffering. I know that Mexico has no choice, we have to fight this war, but I would prefer drugs to be un-penalized (but not legalized) in the U.S. and step up on prevention campaigns.
Kind of tired of the argument. The people that use will keep using whether drugs are illegal or not, the people that would use if drugs were legal will still use the same drugs when they're illegal, and the people that don't use will still think that the people that do use affect their lives.
Yes, there are drug wars, there is gang violence, and there are people in jail who by most accounts shouldn't, but most of these discussions don't go anywhere, and no real action is going to effect a significant improvement with respect to any of these situations any time soon.
For those already convinced, the argument is indeed pointless. However, viewing newspapers / other monolithic media as being consensus-generating devices for elite opinion, these kinds of articles do shift the consensus forward, albeit slowly. When enough consensus one way or the other is achieved, the law is changed to reflect it.
My point, though, is that the law isn't really going to change much.
First of all, even if people in high places (why yes, I am that good) start thinking legalization of <your-favorite-chemical-here> might be a good idea, it'll take years, decades even, to come up with a sound policy about exactly how to do it, what degree of legality is involved, and how to enforce it.
After that happens, do you really think many peoples' lives will be changed? You can't even smoke cigarettes in bars anymore; do you think you'll be able to smoke pot on the street? Probably not. Will you see high/spun/tripping people everywhere? No. You'll go about your business as usual, and if you're the sort of person that wants to do these drugs, you'll still be doing them in the same places, under the same circumstances, as before. Maybe 50 years later culture will get around to adjusting to it, but I can't see it. Maybe I'm too young, or too old, or just too cynical.
One of the things I think is most corrosive is the culture of selling drugs. Why go to school at 15 when you can drop out and make twice what you're parent(s) do selling drugs. Even if little changed for the users or even the level of violence, simply removing that cash flow would fairly quickly have a large positive effect.
Coming home from college this summer I've realized how many of my friends sell drugs as their summer occupation. Just selling weed earns you twice what you'd make doing long hours for minimum wage, it seems.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to get in on the business. Seems like a high-risk high-reward situation.
Why go to school at 15 when you can drop out and make twice what you're parent(s) do selling drugs.
Of course the book Freakonomics posed the question of why so many street-level drug dealers still live with their (usually single) parents, and the answer was that most of those dealers don't actually make much money. But, yes, the DREAM of making big money draws young people into dealing when studying their math and English lessons would almost surely produce more return on investment for their time.
Agree, the current situation is not really preventing drug usage, but it is generating a great deal of violence and putting a lot of money (and guns...and power) in the hands of criminals.
I would not be so sure. Previous to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80's to early 90's, very few people expected that it would fall so soon. If asked, most people (including most historiand, political scientists, and politicians) would have said a collapse (if it happened at all) would probably take many decades. Yet in a few short years it was accomplished, and all of a sudden there were a slew of new republics in its place.
Or look at the end of segregation. Again, to large percentage of the US population at the time it seemed not only that segregation was the way things were, but that it was the way it was meant to be (with much more irrational and passionate attitudes against desegregation than even the anti-drug hysteria we have in the US today), and very few would have expected it to end so soon. And yet all of a sudden there was a mass movement that resulted in desegregation within a decade (though a good argument could be made that the process still isn't complete today).
It is easy enough to find many other examples of fast, radical change throughout history. Just look at the history of any number of revolutions or fights for independence (though, of course, some are take much longer, like the Irish and Palestinian quest for independence).
The point is that history has a way of changing radically, and very quickly. Just because the goal may seem far off today doesn't mean that it will remain so. History is being made as we speak.
Where in the article did it argue for or against drugs? It is more of a sociolgical reading, discussing patterns of drug use among Americans across generations, rather than an activist paper calling for legalization, or a populist one calling for stricter control. Anthropologists have studied and documented all manners of "unacceptable" human behaviour in primitive/savage societies, including cannibalism, incest, and pedophilia among others, but that doesn't mean they're passing judgment on their subject culture. I think we can extend a similar academic courtesy to the greatest and most savage of all societies :-)
I'd say that the instances where the article discusses the negatives of drug prohibition policy far outweigh the instances where the article discusses the negatives effects of drug use. In fact, the anti-drug discussion seems to go no further than an anecdote about cocaine usage, as opposed to many paragraphs spent retelling the pro-drug opinions of a Huffington Post writer that once worked for the Marijuana Policy Project.
I'm not strongly against the opinions put forth in this article, but I think that we should be clear that it is pro-drug.
Good point; the article is pretty academic and I appreciate it for that. I am tired of the argument I anticipated (and, to my dismay, it seems, created) here.
I'm not so sure about legalization(not that I don't think it should happen, but I'm more of the mind is it worth the trouble)
Steve Yegge wrote a great Article/Essay on this http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... .
Seems to me that the hardest problem surrounding is actually implementing the legalization(IE// all the minuscule changes in law that surround it, taxing, etc)
(this is more in response to many of the comments on here, not the article)
The article is not making any point, for or against drugs. It merely chronicles and analyzes (or at least summarizes a book that does) American drug consumption habits.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/
"Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense."