Matthew Yglesias: I hate the Drug War but what is the alternative?

Matthew Yglesias has a pretty weak post defending prohibition.

I mean, I'm not even clear on what question's being asked here. Do I think the status quo is preferable to total deregulation of currently prohibited drugs? I would say so. But considering how heavily regulated the use of alcohol and tobacco is, one hardly imagines that a heroin free-for-all (ads after school cartoons, for sale out of ice cream trucks) is a likely alternative policy. So, I don't know. What is the "war on drugs" exactly? Does it do more harm than good compared to what?

I have spent a lot of time railing against drug propoganda taught to children, costly drug testing in schools, the spraying of toxic chemicals in the environment and the expense associated with drug busts and imprisoning non-violent offenders. Yet I don't think that I have ever written a post about what I think would be a good alternative to the War on Some Drugs.

First of all, the war on drugs is mainly fought against marijuana. 44.2% of all drug arrests were for marijuana use, despite the fact that marijuana is by far the safest recreational drug. Marijuana has never caused an overdose death in the thousands of years of its' use for both recreational and medicinal use, is not addictive and does not lead to the use of hard drugs. There is no good reason to continue to punish marijuana users for using a drug that is far safer than tobacco, alcohol and caffeine.

In a Drug War-Free world, people would be free to grow and sell their own marijuana. I would also like to see marijuana offered for sale in the same places that currently sell tobacco with the same age restrictions. It is unrealistic to expect age restrictions to prevent teenagers from using marijuana, since age regulations hardly stop teenagers from drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. But all the worry about teenage marijuana use is overstated anyway. I believe if most people were aware of the safety of marijuana, they would not over-react to teenage drug use. After all, if you know the gateway theory is bullshit, why freak out because your kids are smoking a bit of weed? If they are at no risk of overdose and are not at an increased risk of using hard drugs, why all the fuss about marijuana?

In a Drug War-Free world we would hopefully see reality based drug education. We would no longer try to scare kids into staying drug-free. Schools in the United States would not be compelled to use costly and ineffective drug testing. We would teach kids the truth about drugs. This would probably mean that there might be more marijuana-smoking kids but since this is not a highly addictive substance and is relatively safe, parents would not be too upset about it. It would be very difficult to know if an end to prohibition would actually mean that more people would use marijuana, since I doubt that people answer surveys honestly. We would continue to teach the dangers of meth and other hard drugs and kids would take what adults say more seriously because they haven't been lied to about marijuana.

Tomorrow (or later if I'm bored) I will post about what I think about the legalization of harder drugs such as cocaine, heroin and meth. Feel free to comment and make suggestions and bring up any missed points that I can address later.