I've made it no secret that my favorite source of information and opinion for the War on Drugs is Radley Balko, who writes The Agitator blog. His latest post (Talking about a Cato Institute study on Portugal's Decriminalization which is on it's own an amazing read) contained three paragraphs that mirror my ideas and are written so much better than anything I could spew out, that I had to to share them.
"Generally speaking, anyone who claims to know for certain what would happen if America were to legalize drugs tomorrow is spewing nonsense. We’ve had some form of prohibition in this country for 100 years. No one knows exactly what will happen.
"That’s why I favor a federalist approach. There are sound Ninth Amendment arguments for finding an actual constitutional right to control what you put into your body. That’s never going to happen. And even if it did, I’d be afraid the change would be too sudden and drastic for much of the country. Instead, just end the drug war at the federal level. A federalist approach would let states and, preferably, localities formulate their own policies. You’d have little Amsterdams, Portugals, and Switzerlands, and you’d also have little Utahs, Louisianas, and Georgias. You’d probably have some cities that completely legalize. And you’d have places, probably entire states, that don’t change a thing.
"We’d then have lots of models to look at and analyze. And people for whom this is an important issue could then vote with their feet, and move to jurisdictions with drug laws that reflect their own values."
Stay High,
Reggie
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