From: strat@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Steve Davis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Drug Legalization. Was: College Was: Perot
Date: 7 Apr 1992 14:23:23 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

emmett@kpc.com (Emmett Kilgariff) writes:

[My proposal for the Legalization and Institutionalization of DRUGS deleted.]

>	This resoning is somewhat utopian. Here is my resoning: 1) Following
>the lessons of prohibition, the price would drop, and organized crime would 
>find something else to do. When alcohol was legalized, in most states, people
>bought alcolol from businesses, not clinics where people who could treat 
>alcoholism would hang out. Remember- when prohibition ended, alcoholism
>doubled!

You are assuming that the legalization of drugs would act the same way
as the end of prohibition.  The proposal which I made said that 1) The
drugs should be made available at these "clinics" at a substantially
lower rate than any other source.  2)  The clinics should be charged
with the health care of their customers... as well as the duty of 
distributing these drugs.  So, the clinics WOULD play a vital role
in helping addicts because the addicts would become PATIENTS of the
drug clinics.

When prohibition of alcohol ended, there were no programs in place.
People just went out and drank and drank.  It's still going on.  But
with the system that I am proposing put in place, the initial increase
in drug use would be about 25%, and then would gradually decrease over
time... probably within 10 to 15 years the number of real addicts would
be in the hundreds or thousands... rather than the tens of thousands
as it is today.

The other point that I want to make here is that this program can't operate
in a void.  The entire social system must change.  Why?  Because today
drug users are criminal.  I believe they are victims.  And addiction
needs to be treated as a disease, rather than a criminal offense.

> 2) the quality of drugs would improve, but abuse and addiction 
>would increase (look at cigarettes and alcohol) and non-violent deaths
>would increase.

You have no numbers to back you up.  If I can find my literature
(probably can't...), I can show you that the system I am proposing
would actually decrease the number of addicts in the mid-to-long term.
Even I will admit to the initial increase drug USE.  But, part of the
process of making something legal that had once been illegal is that a
lot of people will want to rush out and do it.  Actual addiction would
HAVE to decrease.  There is no reasonable theory that would account for
the addiction rate increasing.  The graph I had looked something like
this:

U           ....
S           ,  ....
A ..........      ....
G                    ....
E                       ........

 Time--->   ^- Legalization.

In short, there would be a spike in drug use, that would taper off over
a period lasting between one and five years... and then drug use, as well
as drug addiction would decrease.

On the other hand, look at the graph for drug violence:

V
I
O     ...... 
L ....
E
N
C             ........
E                     ...........
  Time--->   ^- Legalization

Or, in other words, it would virtually dissapear... almost overnight.

> 3) Mafia bottleggers found something else to do after
>prohibition ended, getting into gambling, politics, and other areas, they
>won't just dissapear, but they will be less powerful & probably less 
>dangerous.

Okay then.  There's your choice.  Do you want the mafia to remain powerful
and dangerous?  If so, persue the "war on some drugs".  If not, then
legalize drugs and begin government programs to distribute them at low
cost from clinics designed to help drug addicts break their addiction.

Stratocaster

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