Legalize it?

The Economist has an excellent leader this week arguing for international legislative action to legalize narcotics.

The argument is nothing new, of course, but it is given fresh impetus by a meeting next week of a variety of government ministers in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. The last such meeting in 1998 sought a drug-free world and committed to “eliminating or significantly reducing the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.”

Didn’t work.

The Economist argues that legalization is the “least bad” option, acknowledging that it is not good. Some drug users will suffer. It’s probably a better deal for producer nations than for consumer nations. Harm reduction sounds like weak concession.

But in the face of manifest failure, The Economist argues, it’s worth a try.

It’s a tough sell, not least because law enforcement agencies have become addicted to the budgets they get for fighting the “War on Drugs.” And even those who are disposed to accept the legalization of pot might blanch at legalizing methamphetamine. I know I do.

But Afghanistan and Mexico are failed or failing states because of the narco trade and it’s going to keep costing us billions we can’t afford to swim against the tide of corruption and mayhem generated by drug prohibition.

The most commonly abused drug — alcohol — is perfectly legal, because prohibition didn’t work. Not only did it fail, it basically created major league organized crime. Just as the War on Drugs has “fostered gangsterism on a scale the world has never seen before.”

The argument of drug warriors that the drug market has stabilized — in other words, it’s about the same as it was a decade ago — isn’t sufficient justification for continuing the war. In the current recession, we no longer have the resources to keep up a full-court press and the financially stressed have both more reason to take drugs and to peddle them.

People will always want to alter their senses and they’ll always be willing to pay a pretty penny to do it. And somebody is always going to be willing to supply that demand — and they’ll corrupt governments and kill anybody they need to to keep those profits rolling.

It’d be better if everyone would take Johnny Cash’s advice: “Come all you rounders and listen up to me/ Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.”

But they won’t. We need to come down to reality and accept that. Legalize it? I’ll hold my nose and say yes.

Jim Cornelius, Editor