in The WSJ of All Places....

Today the WSJ editorial page allowed Ethan Nadelman to pitch his argument for legalizing drugs. While the placement of such an editorial may be a shock, the Journal has always had a libretarian streak. My own opinion is that if you have not already jumped on this train, your more delusional than any addict. Nadelman's key point:

Consider the consequences of drug prohibition today: 500,000 people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails for nonviolent drug-law violations; 1.8 million drug arrests last year; tens of billions of taxpayer dollars expended annually to fund a drug war that 76% of Americans say has failed; millions now marked for life as former drug felons; many thousands dying each year from drug overdoses that have more to do with prohibitionist policies than the drugs themselves, and tens of thousands more needlessly infected with AIDS and Hepatitis C because those same policies undermine and block responsible public-health policies.

And look abroad. At Afghanistan, where a third or more of the national economy is both beneficiary and victim of the failed global drug prohibition regime. At Mexico, which makes Chicago under Al Capone look like a day in the park. And elsewhere in Latin America, where prohibition-related crime, violence and corruption undermine civil authority and public safety, and mindless drug eradication campaigns wreak environmental havoc.

There really is no salient public health argument for drug prohibition. The evils wreaked by drugs are genarlly more attributable to their illegal status than their actual physical properties. The only argument left is cultural: legalizing drugs would be a permissive act that will lead us to the path of societal ruin. We'd being giving in to those damn hippies.

But that is just so much balderdash. The repeal of prohibition did not deliver the death blow to Western culture that prohibitionists foretold, and alcohol is a much more dangerous and adictive drug than many. Americans have a deep relationship with pharmaceuticals legal and illegal. The structure of our capitalist society virtually guarantees that to be the case. If we as a society want to limit drug use or abuse, we have no evidence that our current drug laws assist us in that endeavour. Perhaps if we discard the straitjacket of prohibition, we may be able to actually ameliorate the unintended consequences of drug abuse.

Update: You saw it here first. Legalize marijuana but make it illegal to buy, sell or consume weed without a federal or state tax stamp. Tax stamps cost $5 an ounce. The recession will be over in short order.