Moreover, by reducing both the cost and stigma of drug use, legalization in any meaningful form would inevitably result in a far greater number of users and addicts. But the fact remains that while over 80 percent of American high-school seniors have used alcohol, only some 10 percent have tried LSD or cocaine. When it comes to discouraging experimentation with hazardous substances, there is a world of difference between an age limit and an outright ban. Traffic may give a temporary boost to those who wish, despite these risks, to do away with an antidrug regime that has served the country reasonably well and, with modifications, might serve it still better in the future. In the movie s favor, one might hope that it finally prompts politicians and policy-makers to retire the overused, and inappropriate, metaphor of a war on drugs.
Wars tend to be discrete events, decided in a few mighty confrontations.
With illegal drugs, the important struggles are abiding ones, requiring not dramatic action but steadiness and resolve. For an illuminating and wide-ranging discussion of the likely effects of removing the criminal sanctions on drugs, see James Q. Wilson s Against the Legalization of Drugs, Commentary, February 1990.