OBAMA SHOULD PUSH FOR DRUG LEGALIZATION

There is one dramatic change in our social policies that we, as a
society, desperately need, and which Barack Obama is uniquely
positioned to confront. As the first president to admit using
marijuana and cocaine, he understands how easily the vicissitudes of
fate could have made him a casualty of the War on Drugs.

Instead of pursuing the dreams which led him to the presidency, he
could have been just another young man with a criminal record,
limited options and the likelihood of further problems with the law.
For this reason alone, he should use the moral authority of his
office to push for the decriminalization of all drugs.

Drugs can sometimes induce irrational fears. After having eaten
brownies laced with hashish at a party, on the way home I became so
convinced that the bridge across the Hudson River would collapse,
that I turned around and spent the night at a friend's house.

Similarly, good intentions laced with cultural prejudice,
half-truths and sanctimonious moralizing can also induce irrational
fears. You become convinced that society will collapse if drugs
aren't criminalized.

Are drugs so enticing that we will become a nation of addicts if the
drug laws are repealed? In a recent Zogby Poll 99 percent of
Americans said that they wouldn't use hard drugs if they were legal.
So why are we still captive to the fear-mongering that insists that
even marijuana can't be legalized because it will inexorably lead to
an epidemic of cocaine and heroin addiction?

How many of us know people who have used marijuana for years and are
no more a danger to society than the typical alcohol user? When I
worked for a Fortune 500 company, many of my friends and co-workers
used marijuana regularly and cocaine occasionally. They were
typical, modern-day Americans who believed that the main purpose of
life was the pursuit of pleasure.

The truth is that millions of Americans use illegal drugs
responsibly. There are also millions of Americans who have tried
illegal drugs and decided to discontinue using them. There is a very
small percentage of people who are going to become hard-core drug
addicts, and it doesn't matter whether the drugs are legal or illegal.

This is why the War On Drugs has been such an abysmal failure: There
will always be a demand. And as long as there is a demand, there are
going to be suppliers, particularly with the extraordinarily high
profit margins of a black market. Was nothing at all learned from
the failure of alcohol prohibition?

The War On Drugs is a textbook case of the cure being much worse
than the disease. How much of our urban crime today is the direct
result of the illegal drug trade? How much international terrorism
is financed by the trade in illegal narcotics? How many tens of
billions of dollars is spent prosecuting and incarcerating illegal
drug users and sellers? How many millions of young people have to be
thrown into prisons? What is the psychological toll on city
residents living in areas controlled by gangs selling drugs?

Why do we create a situation in which the allure of easy money
tempts our most vulnerable youth, the urban poor, to become involved
with drug selling? As we read in the papers every day, our
politicians and business leaders don't have the character to resist
the temptation to make a quick buck at the public expense. Why
should we expect a much higher standard of morality from a poor kid
from the inner city?

Given its failure to curtail the availability of illegal drugs and
given the massive collateral damage that the War on Drugs wreaks on
our society, at some point it does become insane to keep redoubling
one's efforts and expect to obtain different results.

It is time for the new president to declare an end to the War On
Drugs. It is time for the government to make peace with this vice,
just as it has with the vice of alcohol. If you can't imagine a
world in which heroin is legal, consider that 100 years ago Bayer's
Heroin was sold in drugstores alongside Bayer's Aspirin at about the
same cost.

If the government is truly concerned with curtailing social misery,
it should reconsider its legalization of another vice, gambling,
which I would contend has ruined many more lives than heroin and
cocaine. The government not only tolerates gambling but actively
promotes it through lotteries. Considering the current financial
crisis, it could reasonably be argued that the government has
conspired with Wall Street to turn our economy into one big gaming
table. And when it craps out, a lot of people are going to need
something a little stronger than alcohol.