TIME TO LEGALIZE DRUGS? YES, FOR LIBERTY'S SAKE, NOT MEXICO'S

The sense that Mexico may lose its battle with the drug cartels has
ignited a discussion of drug policy in the United States.

I have mixed emotions about this.

I have long believed that making the use of recreational drugs a
criminal offense was wrongheaded on philosophical grounds.

The United States should be a country dedicated, in part, to the
protection of individual liberty. Such a society should be highly
circumspect about the behaviors it deems criminal and thus worthy of
depriving those who engage in them of their liberty.

The use of recreational drugs should not be such a behavior. Instead,
it should be treated as a matter of personal responsibility and
personal and public health.

The United States does not treat it as such. But, increasingly, the
country treats drug use less and less as a criminal matter, as well.

Few people are actually incarcerated for just drug usage. Diversion
into treatment has become the norm.

This has rendered U.S. drug policy incoherent and arbitrary. Drug use
remains a crime. Enforcement, however, is spotty and inconsistent.

That has left a large demand for recreational drugs that can only be
supplied through criminal enterprises. That hugely inflates prices
and profits. Much of this supply comes from Mexico, and the criminal
money involved has overwhelmed the ability to maintain the rule of
law in parts of the country.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has mobilized national forces to
try to break the grip of the cartels on civil governance in some
areas. The result has been an outbreak of frightening violence with
uncertain prospects for success.

Criminal drug organizations have long been a source of instability in
Latin America. Some fear that Mexico will become a failed state. And
that has some people unmoved by the philosophical argument wondering
whether the United States needs to legalize at least marijuana to
reduce the pressure on Mexico.

The United States has choices.

Contrary to the position taken by most legalization advocates, I
believe prohibition could work. Sweden has tough laws against
recreational drug use and aggressively enforces them. It has a much
lower usage rate than in other European countries.

But the short-term cost of aggressive enforcement would be enormous.
Over a quarter of young American adults 18-25 report having used
marijuana in the past year. And over 6 percent report having used cocaine.

The hypocrisy would be pretty rank. In my generation, former
recreational drug users who are now successful because they avoided
the enforcement lottery are the rule not the exception. We have a
president who has acknowledged using both marijuana and cocaine.

The United States prospered in the 20th century with a Latin America
that, for most of that period, was unstable and economically
dysfunctional. A policy of trying to contain the effects of the Latin
American drug wars on the United States could probably muddle through.

The question is: What's the point? At this juncture, U.S. drug policy
is mostly about maintaining the fiction that the country is doing
something about young adults using recreational drugs.

Education has moderated usage. Diversion does work for some.

But the U.S. demand for recreational drugs remains large and, short
of criminally cracking down on users, it will remain so. Suppression
activities in Latin America have not materially reduced supply.

The United States should legalize and tightly regulate recreational
drugs because that is the policy most compatible with the principle
of protecting individual liberty, and dealing with drug use is a
matter of personal responsibility and personal and public health.

The breathing space it would give the countries in Latin America, and
particularly Mexico, to develop their own civil societies under the
rule of law is not a reason to do so. But it would be a substantial
additional benefit.