NCJ Number
171780
Journal
Valparaiso University Law Review Volume: 31 Issue: 2 Dated: (Spring 1997) Pages: 537-546
Date Published
1997
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The drug-legalization argument is not persuasive if its burden is to show that it would definitely, or probably, lower the social costs associated with drug abuse; but it is possible to show that the distributional consequences of legalization would improve the world.
Abstract
The reason the "war on drugs" should be abandoned is not because it is futile (although it is) and not because of the perverse behavioral incentives it looses (although it does this, too). Rather, it should be abolished because the behavior against which it is ultimately directed -- self-medication with a psychoactive drug -- does not reach that level of direct harm to another party that warrants criminalization. Many other self- indulgences can and do have a similar bad effect on participants, their lives, and perhaps their families, but these behaviors are not treated as crimes. It is true that a pragmatic cost- effectiveness analysis of drug legalization would probably show that any gains from relaxing law enforcement would be offset by losses in public health accounts; however, under such a scheme, the costs of drug abuse would appropriately be borne by the drug abuser rather than the society that must support and adapt to the law enforcement restrictions, abuses, and violence of the "war on drugs." 20 footnotes