The Drug War

Recently there have been a growing number of articles about the horrific drug laws in the US. An article on alternet.org about a two-year study from a British commission makes some excellent points. For example:

• The notion of a drug-free society is "almost certainly a chimera. ... People have always used substances to change the way they see the world and how they feel, and there is every reason to think they always will." Therefore, "[t]he main aim of public policy should be to reduce the amount of harms that drugs cause." A policy based on total prohibition "is bound to fail."
• The concept of "drugs" should include tobacco and alcohol. "Indeed, in their different ways, alcohol and tobacco cause far more harm than illegal drugs." These substances should be brought into a unified regulatory framework "capable of treating substances according to the harm they cause."
• The heart of this new regulatory framework must be an index of substance-related harms. "The index should be based on the best available evidence and should be able to be modified in light of new evidence."
• We need a new way of evaluating the efficacy of drug policies. "In our view, the success of drugs policy should be measured not in terms of the amounts of drugs seized or in the number of dealers imprisoned, but in terms of the amount of harms reduced."

The hypocrisy and drug laws are out of control. When someone can spend 20 years in prison for Marijuana use and a murderer of 2 people can get out of prison after 5 years (with a 7 year sentence), something is very, very wrong. When someone can get a 11 1/2 year sentence for growing mushrooms, something is very, very wrong. When alcohol is responsible for many, many more deaths each year and it gets a pass, something is very, very wrong.