Beyond marijuana: Legalize all drugs

Thirty years ago, a college kid in Kentucky was caught growing marijuana plants in his closet. That turned him into a convicted felon. Though he's been on the right side of the law ever since, he still can't vote. On any job application, he must check the box next to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

All this misery for growing a plant whose leaves the past three presidents admit having smoked.

We know this story because Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky keeps telling it. That a Southern Republican probably running for president is condemning such prosecutions as unfair speaks volumes on the collapsing support for the war on marijuana — part of the larger war on drugs.

Colorado and Washington have legalized recreational pot. So what do we do about the rest of the war — the war on heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and the other nastier stuff? The answer is legalize them, too.

"What is the benefit, what have we derived from this drug war that even begins to offset the horrors we inflict on ourselves via this policy?" asks Dean Becker of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Over the past 40 years, the war has put more than 45 million Americans under arrest and cost taxpayers $1 trillion. And what do we have to show for it? Drugs on the street are cheaper, more powerful and more abundant than ever.

The war has fueled gang wars in our cities and enriched the criminal foreign cartels. It has created a vile class system, turning millions of poor and working-class Americans into felons while largely turning a blind eye toward users of the same drugs in suburban cul-de-sacs.

And again, it's all been for naught.

Wouldn't legalizing all drugs set off a new explosion of drug use? Undoubtedly, some would try drugs for the first time. But regulating the sale could limit the problems. Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2000 and saw little rise in use.

Just decriminalizing drugs — that is, not arresting people possessing them but keeping their sale illegal — does not take criminals out of the business. And it stands in the way of regulating the drug-making now done by untrained chemists in primitive labs. Furthermore, illegal businesses don't get taxed.

THE AUTHOR:

FROMA HARROP writes a column for Creators syndicate. Contact: fharrop@gmail.com.