Legalizing Narcotics--a Puzzlement

One of the most vexing conundrums ever to cross my mind is the question of legalizing narcotics, marihuana only or perhaps even some others (which ones is a major part of the riddle). The other day I was in a history classroom taught by a relatively conservative young teacher—and I could tell he was just as much at sixes and sevens as I am.
His lecture began with the subject of Prohibition—a miserable failure at legislating morality in its own right. It left as with a thriving, nationwide criminal mob and with a major drug problem. After all, the mob had to find a new source of income when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. We obliged them by making all narcotics (except caffeine and nicotine) illegal, making them bigger fortunes than illegal liquor ever had.
We wind up with more prisoners sitting in American jails than inhabit jails in any other democratic or civilized nation. This is a massive cost—talk about tax dollars! Release the felons in prison for drug related offenses and you cut government costs significantly.
I haven’t smoked a joint since the early 70s—it was hip to do then, and everyone knew that the government was lying when it said they were dangerous, after all it had lied about Vietnam, hadn’t it? But I have a hunch that if I wanted to, I could locate a source in hours.
My son—who attended the local high school a few years ago—tells a funny story. A classmate was so stoned that when the bell rang, he stuck the joint in his pocket still lit. It smoldered in his pocket, filling the room with a fragrance everyone recognized—except the young teacher. She hadn’t a clue as to what was making that smell. This kid was not a rare aberration!
I can tell you about this high school where they drive off campus at noon to take a few tokes, or that high school where I’ve personally watched the deals go down, or the next high school where the occasional student enters too out of it to function.
It’s with us, boys and girls. Making it illegal has NOT made it go away or made it more inaccessible. If anything it’s given it more cachet than it might have if it weren’t forbidden. It is probably safe to suggest that drug prohibition has failed as miserably as liquor prohibition.
Kids routinely get arrested for having a few joints, a lid or an ounce in their possession. If he’s bought a “key” to split with friends, that makes him a “big time dealer” and he’s liable to spend years in prison. (Key—kilo, over two pounds. I’ve done it.)
Their lives are ruined for literally “doing what everybody else is doing”. Then there are communities along our borders where the drug wars are so hot that Mexican officials buy homes on the US side hoping to be a bit safer.
As long as it’s illegal, there’s enough drug money to tempt every cop south of the North Pole with a bribe. The drug cartels have enormous power that they enforce with ruthless killings the Mafia would never have countenanced. They can buy many, many politicians—and do.
By making narcotics illegal we have created enormous criminal wealth and power—that we could wipe out with the stroke of a pen. Just legalize and slap on the kind of controls we put on liquor. The dealers and their killers simply go away—with a single change in law.
We make it available at real, legal prices and we don’t have streets full of people waiting to rob our homes and mug us just to get money for the next fix. (I’ve lived among those people in a couple of different large cities.) It’s tempting; it seems so reasonable.
Would we have more addicts if it were legal? Were there more falling down drunks after Prohibition went away—I really don’t know. Does anyone? That’s a major, major part of the riddle. Is it moral to make something as potentially destructive freely available?
Is cutting costs and murder a valid consideration when talking about the often ruinous effects of narcotics? What we’re doing now is definitely not working. So where do we go with it all? As Yul Brenner sang in “The King and I”—“Is a puzzlement!”