NCJ Number
132688
Date Published
1990
Length
381 pages
Annotation
This legal critique of contemporary drug control legislation evaluates the pros and cons of drug legalization, but emphasizes alternative methods of legalization.
Abstract
The focus is on the question of how to deal with drug use if it were legalized rather than on the question of whether to legalize illicit drugs. Any effective approach to drug control requires establishing policy objectives; analyzing alternative drug control methods; and relating these methods to education, treatment, criminal defense, advertising, product liability, and other legal issues. The author seeks to provide a comprehensive set of legal, ethical, and scientific criteria by which to make choices between competing regulatory methods. Five major legal systems of drug regulation are identified: criminal law prohibition, medical prescription, rationing, taxation, and private law. Prohibition sets unrealistic goals and, even with mild sanctions, imposes disproportionate penalties on both drug use and distribution. Medical prescription is superior to severe criminal prohibition but is not adequate otherwise. Private law represents the least restrictive legal alternative but is feasible only if tort law is radically revitalized. Rationing is better suited than the preceding alternatives for efficiently limiting total drug consumption. Taxation is the most familiar alternative to prohibition because of long experience with taxing alcohol and tobacco products. A discussion of drug reform prospects and strategies examines the social context of reform, legislative and political reform, litigation, civil disobedience, and constitutional change. Notes