I wonder how different things would have been if drugs were never made illegal

[Nikia]

In the first place.
I do some volunteer work teaching English as a second language to adults. We use a text book and work book as a starting point. Last week, the theme of the lesson was medicine. One of the students asked why we call a place to buy medicine a "drug store" when "drug" usually is used to describe such things as marijuana, cocaine etc. We had a little discussion about it and how these substances actually used to be in medicines and how certain substances became illegal. It got me thinking about how things would have been completely different if drugs never had become illegal. Fewer people would be incarcerated, of course. Perhaps there would be less crime, property and violence, as well though. Perhaps there would actually become less of a drug addiction problem. From the beginning, people would know that they would always be free to use or not use any substance. They would not have to hide the use of any substance from most people. Maybe crack and powder cocaine would have been less popular than coca. Maybe crystal meth would have never become popular. Maybe there would be much less violence in Central and South America and our foreign relations with these countries would be completely different.
Although some people did have bad intentions borne of prejudice, some people probably did have good intentions in making drugs illegal. They probably had no idea of the consequences just as the alcohol prohibitionsists did not relize the consequences of making alcohol illegal.
I think that relegalization is a more delicate matter since most people alive today have grown up in a culture where drugs are illegal, but I do think that we would be better off if drugs were never made illegal.

[librechik]

1. thousands--millions?-- more young (black) men looking for work

in depressed neighborhoods. That wouldn't look good. In the meantime, the neighborhoods go to hell.

[zonmoy]

7. or would they have created legitimate businesses that built up their neighborhoods.

while all the black ops and false flag operations couldn't happen because they couldn't get funding through the drug trade.

[rzemanfl]

2. Kool-Aid and Hostess cupcakes would have Exon-like profits. nt

[aquart]

3. I'm totally for legalization.

Maybe then my sister would be allowed to have painkillers adequate to her needs. Instead she has to endure and endure because she's running and has to save them for the worst, most unendurable moments. Her life is endless pain with brief respites when we find a way to send her pills. Or she finds a doctor who will write a prescription. California laws insist on endless dodges BEFORE you can have a pill. Every single time. Yet they have her records. Even the US government admits she'll never be able to work again.

[rasputin1952]

4. Right up until the Hatch Act, virtually any drug could be bought

OTC.

There were some problems w/addiction, but no more so than with other addictions, and the vast majority of people were pretty responsible in how they used most items. What was lacking was basic information, and dosing. My Grandmother, upon her passing, still had an old tin of cocaine in her med cabinet that was used for toothaches back in her day. It is a small tim and was dated 1913 impressed in the bottom. It has all kinds of turn of the century style art work, and while we disposed of the contents, the tin remains in family hands. She also had a green bottle labeled paregoric, you could shake it up and see the opium swirl through the alcohol...this after some 60 years! No one would be daft enough to try the stuff, but it shows just what could have been purchased not all that long ago.

Drug laws were enacted because of a perception that people would become addicted and thereafter be doomed to a life not worth living, theft, murder, sexual escapades etc. While these things were rare back before illegality, it took hold and the power that fear wields was felt under the law. Addiction to opiates at the time just before enactment, was about 0.7% in the US, alcohol addiction was about 9% of the population. Today, alcohol addiction is at about 10% of the population, w/abuse ranking at about 37%, but the opiate rate of addiction has only risen to 0.9%. There is still abuse at a higher rate, but true addiction remains relatively small.

On the other hand, cocaine addiction has risen markedly, and is at about 1.4% of the population, and abuse is at about 4.9%. These #'s stay pretty close to a baseline for most societies that have an addiction situation. The same thing rises for methamphetamine, but the effects of meth are incredibly difficult for the body to manage, and when one adds that how it is made effects it's purity and adds serious toxic chemicals like anhydrous ammonia, insecticides and battery acid, it is no wonder it is so devastating. Amphetamines of clinical purity, while being potentially additive, do not tear the body apart as the "street stuff" does.

Bottom line, no matter how many laws are passed, nor how a society frowns upon the use of mind altering substances, the one thing that laws DO do is increase the price for the substance. An increase in price means more profit, and therefore, the risk is acceptable in making/delivering the product. That tin of cocaine had a price stamped on it, "10 Cents", granted it was 1913, but it was also 1/2 oz. "pure" cocaine. FWIW, when opened, there was a lot of brown crystalline material in there, if she had used a penny's worth, I'd be surprised.

[rasputin1952]

6. EEK...it was the Harrison Act, not the Hatch Act that brought

in the illegality of mind altering drugs....My Bad...:blush:

Thankfully, a vigilant DU'er saw my error and brought it to my attention...:D

One other thing...marijuana was added to the list because of the Mexican and Black connection, it was never meant to be on there in the first place, but the popularity of the drug in the minority communities gave it the boost they found necessary to put it on the list. Lot's of racism and racial aspects to that whole scenario.

[Asgaya Dihi]

5. Regulated is the key I'd think

When we discuss legalizing people have wild ideas about heroin sold on street corners and garbage of the sort, pure free use with no restraint. Once we get into regulation itself people start to accept the idea that it can be regulated, they just don't like "legal" for some reason and have a hard time getting comfortable with the idea that regulated *is* legal.

In the early 1900s we did have an addiction problem in this country, drugs weren't regulated and could be sold as additives to common remedies with no warning to the customer of what they were taking. That's where the old story of the 'snake oil' salesman came from. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 put an end to that and reduced addiction from much higher than we see today to about the same level as we see today on no stronger action than just telling people what they were taking, product labeling. Most people aren't stupid and those with a biological inclination toward substance abuse aren't going to change for punitive laws, but they might learn to restrain or control it through treatment and help. We've accomplished nothing with the prison system that labels alone didn't accomplish.

A history of how we got from pre-prohibition to where we are today can be read at the following, written by a professor of law who had direct access to the public and private files of what would later become the DEA so it's first hand and based on info from our own governmental archives. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

How it would be today without prohibition I have no idea, cultures change and regulation seems more needed in a crowded world than it would in a more thinly populated one such as the pre 1900s era, but I'm positive an effective approach doesn't require most of what we've actually done. The Swiss are exploring a heroin treatment program which includes both medical treatment and heroin maintenance for those who can't quit, seems to reduce damage both for users and for society and the Lancet medical journal did a nice article on the subject a year or so ago. If you want a link to a little debate where I discussed the issue with the public on a video sharing site let me know. It's not the only approach to the problem, but it's a better one than the option we practice today and it might show some long term hope of reducing damage rather than just filling prisons. Worth some trial studies at least if we could get around schedule 1 and do them.

[marvinsmith]

8. the economics of drugs and society

Speaking from a strictly social and economic cost with no regard for the life of the individual addict, it makes more sense economically to decriminalize and either provide low cost drugs for (methadone) or treat the addict. In England, most of their addicts maintain jobs, rather like treating a diabetic with insulin.

That is why it's done that way in England and most civilized countries, rather than stuffing up jail cells with petty drug users at the tax-payer expense.

[bamacrat]

9. "Imagine" would be real.

Well in the sense that we would all be happy and harmonious, really I think if weed were legal but everything else stayed the same there would be an amazing difference.