Nadelmann: The main weakness is how you define costs and benefits. The economists don't identify issues like privacy, freedom, tolerance. They give these things zero value. And to me, those are very significant.
Reason: In the Daedalus article, you propose a mail-order system for drugs that the Princeton Working Group has discussed. How would that work, and what advantages do you think it has over a more free market approach?
Nadelmann: We're trying to balance three competing sets of interests. You want to minimize the negative consequences of prohibition. But on the other hand, I'm persuaded by evidence from the public health field that restrictions on the availability of drugs like alcohol and tobacco are effective in reducing the negative consequences to the users themselves and to others. There's also a tension between the individual's right to consume drugs and a community's right to control its external environment. And then there's the fact that we live in a federal system; ideally, we want local approaches to local problems. You don't necessarily want the same drug policy everywhere, but state policies can't vary so much that we generate enormous interstate smuggling problems.
Then the question becomes, 'What's the minimum way to accommodate these concerns?" You need an individual adult right of consumption, anywhere in the country, and you need a legally protected right to obtain drugs of known purity, potency, and quality--also anywhere in the country. The minimum way to accommodate these two rights is a system where you can call up and order drugs by mail. Anyone would have the right to obtain this stuff and to possess it anywhere in the country, even though you might not be able to sell it or market it out in the open, and you might not be able to use it out in the open.
This is a minimal system. It guts the criminal side of things. And it gets past concerns about advertising, about drugs in every corner store, and so on. The individual right to obtain and possess this stuff, and even transfer it in small amounts, is essentially sacrosanct. It also eliminates the role of the doctor; you can obtain any drugs through the system. On the other hand, it allows communities to control their external environment.
Reason: Might some municipalities allow an open retail trade, including taverns?
Nadelmann: You might have modern-day opium dens or drug cooperatives. But the state of Mississippi might remain totally dry for external purposes. It might prohibit advertising, prohibit public consumption, prohibit sale in taverns. Yet every adult would have the right to possess and consume in private.
Reason: Would the mail-order source be the government, or would there be competing private suppliers?
Nadelmann: I haven't thought about it. But to me, it's not fundamental whether it's governmental or nongovernmental.
Reason: You've noted that competition encourages innovation and movement toward better, less harmful drugs. With a government monopoly, there wouldn't be much room for that.
Nadelmann: Right. I want to find ways to promote less dangerous products. It might very well be private producers, and there could be multiple distributors.
Reason: In his book Against Excess, Mark Kleiman proposes a phased-in ban on tobacco, coupled with a system of "grudging toleration" for alcohol and marijuana, including drug licenses and rationing. What do you think of that approach?
Nadelmann: I think prohibiting access to tobacco products by adults is a mistake, both on policy grounds and on ethical grounds. I think it will generate a black market; it will create a lot of the same problems we've had with other prohibitions. And I think it's immoral to punish, and especially incarcerate people for making that sort of decision.
Licensing is an intriguing idea. Suppose that each time you buy a drug, you have to pass a little 10 question test on drug safety, which every junkie in town would be able to pass in two minutes, once they knew the basic answers. Or you could avoid the test by get- ting a license that shows you've already passed a test. Mark [Kleiman] would have the government revoking people's licenses for misbehavior. I'm not sure that's the way to go. I'd prefer to have something that resembles a license test that people could easily pass but that at least would ensure they were aware of basic precautions and other information.
Reason: What are the prospects for drug reform during the next decade?
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
canada goose jackets|5.9.10 @ 11:55PM|#
The strongest attack on this assumption comes from an unlikely source: Warren Farrell, formerly an activist in the women's movement and the only man elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women. Farrell is the author of The Myth of Male Power (Simon & Schuster, 1993), which Barbara Dority, co-chair of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, says has the "potential for being The Feminine Mystique of the men's movement." Farrell writes: "Feminism justified female 'victim power' by convincing the world that we lived in a sexist, male-dominated, and patriarchal world. The Myth of Male Power explains why the world was bi-sexist, both male and female-dominated, both patriarchal and matriarchal--each in different ways."
nfl jerseys|11.17.10 @ 3:44AM|#
ctdhdt
منتدى العرب|3.9.11 @ 9:32PM|#
Thank you