How to legalize drugs
By: edited by Jefferson M. Fish.
Contributors: Fish, Jefferson M.
Publisher: Jason Aronson
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Northvale, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 675
Subjects: Drug legalization -- United States.; Drug abuse -- United States.; Drug control -- United States.; Drugs of abuse -- Law and legislations -- United States -- Criminal provisions.
Description: No wonder the war on drugs is being lost: the warriors' arrows are all pointed in the wrong directions. The black-market-driven effects of prohibition, which include crime and its spiraling scourges as well as death and disease, are overall counterproductive. Ironically, the severe penalties intended to halt serious abuse intimidate the occasional user but not the real target, whose desperate search for consolation in drugs is more result than cause of the misery of marginalization.

The rationale for reform, most commonly rooted in a cost/benefit comparison (public harm versus public health) or in the libertarian argument, comprises the first part of this persuasive plea for a paradigm shift and paves the way for the second, on approaches to legalizing drugs.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 658-660) and index.