TIME TO DECRIMINALISE DRUGS

OF ALL the noteworthy reasons offered for putting an end to the "War
on Drugs", the one that surely gets the least play is this: people
like their drugs and don't appreciate the Government telling them
they can't have them.

Only a tiny fraction of drug-policy reformers trot that one out at
conferences or in opinion pieces. Even some doctrinaire libertarians
choke on the sentiment. We have to draw the line somewhere, they say.
What message does adult drug use send our youth?

An important question, to be sure. But we might want to ask ourselves
what message we're already transmitting to young, impressionable minds.

We've told our kids that cannabis is a "gateway" drug. Smoke it and
you'll surely wind up face down in a urine-soaked alley, a needle
sticking out of the collapsed vein in your arm.

We've told them, by the very act of repealing alcohol prohibition in
the United States 76 years ago, that booze is safer than pot. We've
told them that those who use drugs are criminals, and those who
become addicted are "junkies" or "dope fiends". We've told them to
"just say no", surely inoculating them and their friends against any
foreseeable drug use.

The problem is that so much of what we've told our children is a lie.
And they know it.

Are drugs dangerous to kids? You bet they are, starting with the
certifiably authentic "gateway" drug of nicotine.

Mind and mood-altering drugs can cause serious damage to adolescents'
normal development. So can lies.

Misleading young people subtracts from our credibility. It diminishes
our authority, and makes it difficult to convey legitimate concerns
about drug use.

A growing number of reformers are challenging the duplicity of drug
war proponents - even as we work just as hard as they to keep
dangerous drugs, including alcohol, out of the lives of our kids.

I'm a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc), an
organisation of 13,000 present and former criminal justice
practitioners and allies. We've concluded that the drug war,
prosecuted with bogus claims and shrill propaganda, has made the
world much less safe for all, especially our youth.

Our agenda? End the drug war; replace prohibition with a regulatory
model; reverse the 7:1 ratio of funding for enforcement over
prevention and treatment, thereby reducing death, disease, crime, and
addiction; and support solid educational programs that help all
people, young and old, make informed judgments about what they choose
to put into their bodies.

Defenders of the status quo believe that ending prohibition would
cause hordes of drug-free people to line up to smoke crack or shoot
smack. An October 2007 Zogby poll of voter-age Americans debunks that
myth. More than 99 per cent of non-users answered "no" when asked if
they would try hard drugs "such as heroin or cocaine" if such were
made legal (0.6 per cent said yes, 0.4 per cent weren't sure).

What would happen if the government no longer ordered adults not to
use drugs? My guess is that a small number of the uninitiated would
experiment with cannabis (100 million Americans have already tried it
at least once), and that overall drug use would drop - the result of
a shift in public policy that puts our money on prevention and treatment.