usenet/Plans_for_ending_drug_prohibition.html

From our archives of Tom's USENET posts. These posts data back to the early 1990s; the author may have mellowed with age since these were written, but the basic views remain. (Please note that web links inside this document may be broken.)

Subject: Plans for ending drug prohibtion Author: Thomas Swiss <tms@mail.bcpl.net> Date: 1998/10/23 Forum: balt.general Posted on: 1998/10/23 Message-ID: <70qkjh$dt5@mail.bcpl.net> Followup-To: poster NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:15:35 EDT Newsgroups: balt.general,talk.politics.drugs Organization: Baltimore County Public Library References: <36172917.39AC@-REMOVE_THIS-erols.com> <8992B3669A85ECDE.57353D120D488D79.0F16B8317C63DB3F@library-proxy.airnews.net> <70o53s$ojd@mail.bcpl.net><9AD2CE781CD4FF0E.AA7DBDF71F3FDFB7.E2118591E0300FF4@library-proxy.airnews.net> X-Complaints-To: abuse@bcpl.net X-Trace: news.abs.net 909170135 204.255.212.10 (Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:15:35 EDT) (Note Newsgroups: and Followup-To:) In article <9AD2CE781CD4FF0E.AA7DBDF71F3FDFB7.E2118591E0300FF4@library-proxy.airnews.net>, Lee E. Brown <leebrown@jagunet.com> wrote: > >Dense? No. Is it that I'm not saying what you want to hear, or is that >you're not hearing what I'm saying? I understand the differences quite well. >I also understand that decriminalization only solves PART of the problem, and >I think that what lies after that is not well explored. "Decriminalize first, >and sort the rest out later" does not sound like a well-developed social >policy. Dig? Well, there are many plans for what to do after ending drug prohibition, ranging from outright libertarian "sell anything to anyone so long as you aren't fraudulent", to the "consulting pharmacist" model where drug users would need to obtain a sort of license certifying that they had passed a drug education course. In my opinion, the libertarian option is fine, but won't garner enough support to come about. For your entertainment, then, I will briefly present the Thomas M. Swiss Model of Drug Policy, a compromise plan meant to be conservative enough to draw support, libertarian enough to remove the state from personal decisions, and simple enough to be implemented tomorrow. (It also slices, dices, and takes inches off your waist and hips. Order now!) Elements are drawn from many different sources, including the consulting pharmacist and harm reduction paradigms. My objective here is really just to show that there has indeed been a lot of thought put into what to do after prohibition. So, assuming they give me that magic wand that makes my word law... 1) ALL persons imprisoned for simple drug possession or simple sale (that it, no violence or fraud involved) are immediately released. All criminal records for these "crimes" are expunged. Simple possession of any drug is no longer a crime. (Ideally, this is part of a larger movement to remove criminal penalties for all consensual acts - prostitution, gambling, and so on - and reparations are made for the harm done by these immoral laws. But that's another topic.) 2) We classify drugs into three broad categories: soft, hard, and medical use only. To start with, soft drugs would include all those found in plants or produced by natural processes: beer, wine, cannabis, coca, psilocybin, peyote, etcetera. Hard drugs would any refined or processed drugs, or artificial ones: hard liquor, heroin, cocaine, LSD, hash oil, PCP, ketamine, and most of the rainbow of pills behind the pharmacist's counter. Artificial or refined drugs that were proven to be of low abuse potential would later be moved into the "soft" category; LSD or MDMA might fit the bill. Medical use only drugs would be those with no recreational use, whose misuse could harm people other than the user. Antibiotics would be in this category (misuse causes resistant strains of bacteria); so might "date rape" drugs. Soft drugs could be purchased by anyone eighteen years of age or older, from licensed sellers. The distribution of soft drugs would generally be regulated by extending the current structures that currently regulate cigarettes and liquor. Soft drugs would be lightly taxed, and part of the tax would fund education and PSA campaigns to discourage irresponsible use. It would not be a crime in and of itself for parents to provide these drugs to their children; thus, giving a glass of wine to your kid on Thanksgiving would no longer be a crime (as it is now), and parents could let curious adolescents try these drugs UNDER SUPERVISION, removing initial drug experiences from the peer pressure that leads to abuse. Parents would have civil liability for allowing their children to abuse these drugs. Hard drugs would be available by prescription, or to those having passed a drug education class. Sellers of hard drugs would need additional licensing, including training on how to steer people away from abusive patterns of drug use. There'd probably be different sub-categories of hard drugs with different levels of requirements; hard liquor would require a few hours of educating drinkers and a bit of training for bartenders to learn when to cut them off, whereas heroin might require users to go through dozens of hours of education and sellers to be pharmacists. Providing hard drugs to children, except by prescription, would be illegal. Doctors could prescribe maintenance doses of hard drugs for addicts; these prescriptions would not require the drug education classes. Hard drugs would be taxed at a higher level - although not high enough to create a significant black market - and the taxes mostly used to fund addiction treatment and drug education programs. Prescriptions would not be taxed. In general, the distribution of hard drugs would regulated by extending the current structures that regulate prescription drugs. Medical use only drugs would be available only by prescription. 3) Addiction treatment would be available free of charge to anyone, funded by taxes on drugs and possibly by the criminal justice expenses we would realize. 4) Needle exchange, needle exchange, needle exchange. 5) Driving or operating any hazardous machine while impaired - by recreational or prescription drugs, by lack of sleep, for whatever reason - would be a crime. 6) Persons on parole or probation may be barred from drug use and/or forced to undergo addiction treatment, if appropriate to the circumstances. 7) Drugging someone without their knowledge or consent would be a serious crime, of roughly the same magnitude as rape. 8) Being under the influence of a drug is not an excuse for committing any crime; however, drug abuse or addition may be taken into account when considering how to rehabilitate a convict. (I'm also waving the magic wand over the penal system to make rehabilitation, rather than warehousing and education in criminal behavior, its primary goal; but that's another topic.) That's a brief summary of my thoughts on a workable plan that could draw support. There are many others. ===Tom Swiss/tms(at)infamous.net===http://www.infamous.net==="Born to die"=== "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" - Nick Lowe "He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die." -- Giacomo Leopardi

"...all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw

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