Prohibition, legalizing drugs and the public health consequences

Here's an interesting column on the drug dilemma facing our nation by George Will. He points out the tremendous costs of enforcing our drug laws along with the tremendous health consequences of legalizing drugs.

Legalizing drugs would increase the public health consequences enormously.

So, suppose cocaine or heroin were legalized and marketed as cigarettes and alcohol are. And suppose the level of addiction were to replicate the 7 percent of adults suffering from alcohol abuse or dependency. That would be a public health disaster. As the late James Q. Wilson said, nicotine shortens life, cocaine debases it.

Still, because the costs of prohibition — interdiction, mass incarceration, etc. — are staggeringly high, some people say, “Let’s just try legalization for a while.” Society is not, however, like a controlled laboratory; in society, experiments that produce disappointing or unexpected results cannot be tidily reversed.

Legalized marijuana could be produced for much less than a tenth of its current price as an illegal commodity. Legalization of cocaine and heroin would cut their prices, too; they would sell for a tiny percentage of their current prices. And using high excise taxes to maintain cocaine and heroin prices at current levels would produce widespread tax evasion — and an illegal market.

Furthermore, legalization would mean drugs of reliable quality would be conveniently available from clean stores for customers not risking the stigma of breaking the law in furtive transactions with unsavory people. So there is no reason to think today’s levels of addiction are anywhere near the levels that would be reached under legalization.

I think there's another side to the issue which isn't much discussed. Why is there such a high demand for drugs whether legal like alcohol and cigarettes or illegal marijuana, cocaine and heroin? I think they highlight the deeper moral and spiritual crisis in our culture and society. They're a means of escape or masking the pain of spiritual emptiness found in materialist culture.