DRUG POLICY HAS FAILED

Is the push to legalize marijuana in Florida for medical use a
legitimate attempt to eliminate pain and suffering, or a thinly-veiled
effort by unreconstructed hippies to legally get high?

I don't know, and frankly, don't care.

It's time to shift the debate from side issues like medical marijuana,
and instead look at decriminalizing all recreational drugs. The nation
must face the fact that the war on drugs has been a dismal failure
causing far more damage than it has mitigated, and it just isn't worth
the price.

Americans came to a similar conclusion in1933 when they voted to end
the war on alcohol by repealing Prohibition. That effort at social
engineering was called the Noble Experiment, and it failed.

Alcohol was, and still is, the most deadly mind-altering drug in the
United States. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking, but it
did generate criminal activity that corrupted society.

The enormous profits from bootlegging and rum running created
underworld organizations that survive today. The money so debased
politicians and judges that mob bosses often pulled the strings of
government. With alcohol illegal, production standards disappeared,
and tainted alcohol killed and injured tens of thousands of people.

The failed war on drugs has had a similar impact, but worse. Many
inner city neighborhoods are all but inhabitable because of gang wars
fueled by profits from the drug trade. Robbery and burglary cause
people to live in fear as drug users commit crimes to buy drugs with a
street value 50 times that of the pharmaceutical value. The vast sums
involved have undermined foreign governments, like Colombia's.

Half of America's prison beds are occupied by people convicted of drug
related crimes. The tens of billions of dollars spent each year on
apprehending, convicting and housing these people would be far better
spent on improving schools and medical care.

In case you think I'm some left-wing loon smoking a joint as I write
this column, I assure you, I'm not. The late William F. Buckley, the
godfather of the conservative movement, held the same view. So did the
late Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, whose ideas stand
at the core of conservative economic thinking. George P. Shultz,
Ronald Regan's esteemed secretary of state, also has endorsed ending
the drug war.

"But if drugs are legalized, drug abuse will soar," you
say.

That's not at all clear. Per capita alcohol consumption has declined
sharply in the United States since the 19th century, and so has
tobacco use, and alcohol and tobacco are both legal products.

Government has a role to play in educating people on the dangers of
drug use. It also has an obligation to punish severely those selling
drugs to minors.

Yes, drug abuse is immoral, but so is continuing a drug policy that
causes more harm than good.

Kingsley Guy duels the issues with Stephen L. Goldstein on alternate
Fridays.