The Oxy Epidemic Shows What Happens When Addictive Drugs Are Easily Available:

[...]

On a related note, the famous Case/Deaton paper showing a rise in white mortality since 2000 breaks out three categories of death: suicides, liver disease (a proxy for alcohol abuse), and drug poisoning. All three have gone up, but poisoning has gone up far, far more than the others. The first two have increased about 50 percent since 2000. Poisoning has increased about 1,500 percent. This coincides with the period when Oxy became popular, and probably accounts for a big part of the difference between increased white mortality in America vs. other countries. Oxy is a famously white drug, and may also account for the fact that mortality has increased among whites but not blacks or Hispanics.

And on another related note, the damage from the Oxy epidemic is worst among the poor and working class. It's easy to favor drug legalization when you're middle-class and well educated. Your social group probably doesn't include many people who abuse drugs much in the first place. Moderate users can afford their habit. And when their use turns into addiction, they usually have a strong support network to help out. It's a problem, but not a huge one.

In poor communities, none of this is true. Drug addiction is financially ruinous. It often leads to petty crime. Support systems are nonexistent. The justice system is harsh. There are no rehab centers on the Malibu coast to help out. Drug epidemics—Oxy, meth, heroin, you name it—are devastating. It's something to keep in mind when you consider both the costs and benefits of drug legalization. Ending the war on drugs would indeed be a huge benefit, but the costs might be higher than you think.

He's right that simply allowing the Wonders of the Marketplace to run rampant won't fix the problem. We need to think about how we end the War on Drugs while we rationalize the drug laws. Science and logic and compassion need to guide us, not black-and-white political memes.

Cheers,
Scott.

Spiegel from 2013:

[...]

Much the Same as a Parking Violation

As part of its war on drugs, Portugal has stopped prosecuting users. The substances listed in the Law 30/2000 table are still illegal in Portugal -- "Otherwise we would have gotten into trouble with the UN," Goulão explains -- but using these drugs is nothing more than a misdemeanor, much the same as a parking violation.

[...]

"We haven't found some miracle cure," Goulão says. Still, taking stock after nearly 12 years, his conclusion is, "Decriminalization hasn't made the problem worse."

At the moment, Goulão's greatest concern is the Portuguese government's austerity policies in the wake of the euro crisis. Decriminalization is pointless, he says, without being accompanied by prevention programs, drug clinics and social work conducted directly on the streets. Before the euro crisis, Portugal spent €75 million ($98 million) annually on its anti-drug programs. So far, Goulão has only seen a couple million cut from his programs, but if the crisis in the country grows worse, at some point there may no longer be enough money.

It is simply by chance that the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has its headquarters in Lisbon. Frank Zobel works here, analyzing various approaches to combating drugs, and he says he can observe "the greatest innovation in this field" right outside his office door.

No drug policy, Zobel says, can genuinely prevent people from taking drugs -- at least, he is not familiar with any model that works this way. As for Portugal, Zobel says, "This is working. Drug consumption has not increased severely. There is no mass chaos. For me as an evaluator, that's a very good outcome."

(Emphasis added.)

The US closed lots of mental institutions decades ago for some good reasons, but we didn't spend the money necessary to treat those people in the community. I have little confidence that drug abuse treatment will get more funding if we stop putting people in jail for possession.

Not locking people up for drug possession is a very good thing. The war on drugs has been a disaster.

At this point, I agree that blanket legalization is a bad idea. Buying strongly addictive substances needs to be treated differently than a buying a pair of socks or something.

As long as there is a profit motive involved, and patent protections, I'm very leery of the idea freeing up pharmaceutical companies to sell any kind of feel-good or pain-numbing drugs they want. If, say, they were treated like public utilities with regulated profits and clear oversight then maybe. Maybe.

What about growing a few pot plants? That maybe should be treated the way Portugal does as well, until we know more. But should the potency be regulated somehow? How should driving while intoxicated rules apply (given that residues can remain in the body days/weeks later)? Should we only rely on subjective opinions of an officer ("he was weaving and driving too slowly") rather than measurements of some metabolite? I dunno (especially given what we've seen about local cops abusing people).

These are mostly academic questions for the millions of people who work for the federal government, but they're things we should all think about.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.