drug should be legalized essay

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Should drugs be legalized? Legalization pros and cons

Source: Composite by G_marius based on Chuck Grimmett's image

Should drugs be legalized? Why? Is it time to lift the prohibition on recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine? Can we stop drug trafficking? if so what would be the best way to reduce consumption?

Public health problem

Drugs continue to be one of the greatest problems for public health . Although the consumption of some substances has declined over time, new drugs have entered the market and become popular. In the USA, after the crack epidemic, in the 80s and early 90s, and the surge of methamphetamine, in the 90s and early 21st century, there is currently a prescription opioid crisis . The number of casualties  from these opioids, largely bought in pharmacies, has overtaken the combined deaths from cocaine and heroine overdose. There are million of addicts to these substances which are usually prescribed by a doctor. This is a relevant twist to the problem of drugs because it shows that legalization or criminalization may not always bring the desire solution to the problem of drug consumption. On the other hand there is also evidence of success in reducing drug abuse through legal reform. This is the case of Portuguese decriminalization of drug use, which has show a dramatic decrease in drug related crime, overdoses and HIV infections. 

History of prohibition of drugs

There are legal recreational drugs , such as alcohol and  tobacco , and other recreational drugs which are prohibited. The history of  prohibition of drugs is long. Islamic Sharia law, which dates back to the 7th century, banned some intoxicating substances, including alcohol. Opium consumption was later prohibited in China and Thailand. The  Pharmacy Act 1868 in the United Kingdom was the first modern law in Europe regulating drug use. This law prohibited the distribution of poison and drugs, and in particular opium and derivates. Gradually other Western countries introduced laws to limit the use of opiates.  For instance in San Francisco smoking opium was banned in 1875 and in Australia opium sale was prohibited in 1905 . In the early 20th century, several countries such as Canada, Finland, Norway, the US and Russia, introduced alcohol prohibitions . These alcohol prohibitions were unsucessful and lifted later on. Drug prohibitions were strengthened around the world from the 1960s onward. The US was one of the main proponents of a strong stance against drugs, in particular since Richad Nixon declared the "War on Drugs ." The "War on Drugs" did not produced the results expected. The demand for drugs grew as well as the number of addicts. Since production and distribution was illegal, criminals took over its supply.  Handing control of the drug trade to organized criminals has had disastrous consequences across the globe. T oday, drug laws diverge widely across countries. Some countries have softer regulation and devote less resources to control drug trafficking, while in other countries the criminalization of drugs can entail very dire sentences. Thus while in some countries recreational drug use has been decriminalized, in others drug traficking is punished with life or death sentences.

Should drugs be legalized?

In many Western countries drug policies are considered ineffective and decriminalization of drugs has become a trend. Many experts have provided evidence on why drugs should be legal . One reason for legalization of recreational drug use is that the majority of adicts are not criminals and should not be treated as such but helped in other ways. The criminalization of drug users contributes to generating divides in our societies. The "War on Drugs" held by the governments of countries such as USA , Mexico, Colombia, and Indonesia, created much harm to society. Drug related crimes have not always decline after a more intolerant government stance on drugs. Prohibition and crime are often seen as correlated.

T here is also evidence of successful partial decriminalization in Canada, Switzerland, Portugal and Uruguay. Other countries such as Ireland seem to be following a similar path and are planning to decriminalize some recreational drugs soon.  Moreover, The United Nations had a special session on drugs on 2016r,  UNGASS 2016 , following the request of the presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala. The goal of this session was  to analyse the effects of the war on drugs. explore new options and establish a   new paradigm in international drug policy in order to prevent the flow of resources to organized crime organizations. This meeting was seen as an opportunity, and even a call, for far-reaching drug law reforms. However, the final outcome failed to change the status quo and to trigger any ambitious reform.

However, not everyone is convinced about the need of decriminalization of recreational drugs. Some analysts point to several reasons why  drugs should not be legalized  and t he media have played an important role in shaping the public discourse and, indirectly, policy-making against legalization. For instance, t he portrayal of of the issue in British media, tabloids in particular, has reinforced harmful, dehumanising stereotypes of drug addicts as criminals. At the moment the UK government’s response is to keep on making illegal new recreational drugs. For instance,  Psychoactive Substances Bill aims at criminalizing legal highs . Those supporting the bill argue that  criminalization makes more difficult for young people to have access to these drugs and could reduce the number of people who get addicted. 

List of recreational drugs

This is the  list of recreational drugs  (in alphabetic order) which could be subject to decriminalization in the future:

• Amfetamines (speed, whizz, dexies, sulph)
• Amyl nitrates (poppers, amys, kix, TNT)
• Cannabis (marijuana, hash, hashish, weed)
• Cocaine (crack, freebase, toot)
• Ecstasy (crystal, MDMA, E)
• Heroin (H, smack, skag, brown)
• Ketamine  (K, special K, green)
• LSD (acid, paper mushrooms, tripper)
• Magic mushrooms (mushies, magics)
• Mephedrone (meow meow, drone, m cat)
• Methamfetamines (yaba, meth, crank, glass)
• Painkillers, sedatives and tranquilizers (chill pills, blues, bricks)

Pros and cons of legalization of drugs

These are some of the most commonly argued pros of legalization :

• Government would see the revenues boosted due to the money collected from taxing drugs.
• Health and safety controls on these substances could be implemented, making recreational drugs less dangerous.
• Facilitate access for medicinal use. For instance cannabis is effective treating a range of conditions. Other recreational drugs could be used in similar ways.
• Personal freedom. People would have the capacity to decide whether they experiment with drugs without having to be considered criminals or having to deal with illegal dealers.
• Criminal gangs could run out of business and gun violence would be reduced.
• Police resources could be used in other areas and help increase security.
• The experience of decriminalization of drugs in some countries such as Portugal and Uruguay, has led to a decrease in drug related problems. 

Cons of decriminalizing drug production, distribution and use:

• New users for drugs. As in the case of legal recreational drugs, decriminalization does not imply reduction in consumption. If these substances are legal, trying them could become "more normal" than nowadays.
• Children and teenagers could more easily have access to drugs.
• Drug trafficking would remain a problem. If governments heavily tax drugs, it is likely that some criminal networks continue to produce and smuggle them providing a cheaper price for consumers.
• The first few countries which decide to legalize drugs could have problems of drug tourism.
• The rate of people driving and having accidents due drug intoxication could increase.
• Even with safety controls, drugs would continue to be a great public health problem and cause a range of diseases (damamge to the brain and lungs, heart diseases, mental health conditions).
• People may still become addicts and die from legalized drugs, as in America's opioid crisis.

What do think, should recreational drugs be legalized or decriminalized? Which of them?  Is legalising drugs being soft on crime?  Is the prohibition on drugs making the work of the police more difficult and diverting resources away from other more important issues? Join the discussion and share arguments and resources on the forum below .

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The World’s View on Drugs Is Changing. Which Side Are You On?

Should we decriminalize drugs, or legalize.

Today on “The Argument,” is it time to legalize all drugs?

Last November, an overwhelming majority of Oregonians voted to decriminalize most drugs via referendum. Medical marijuana is now legal in Alabama. And in a matter of months, cannabis products could be available to those who qualify.

Truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug. And I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally.

President Biden may not be ready for legalized, recreational marijuana, but many states are way ahead of him. Connecticut just became the 18th state to legalize recreational marijuana. And it’s not just weed. Several cities have recently decriminalized magic mushrooms, and Oregon just decriminalized possession of small amounts of all drugs, including heroin, methamphetamines, and cocaine. It seems like the War on Drugs is over and drugs won big. I’m Jane Coaston, and there seems to be more and more consensus that jailing our way out of the addiction crisis in the United States is not working. But even hardcore drug policy reformers have vastly different takes on how we get to a better place with drugs, like our guests today. Ismail Ali is the Policy and Advocacy Director at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and Jonathan P. Caulkins is the H. Guyford Stever University Professor of Operations, Research, and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. I started out by asking Ismail to define the difference between drug decriminalization and legalization.

So when people think of decriminalization, they’re usually thinking of the reduction or elimination of criminal penalties, sometimes including civil penalties. And legalization tends to be when the law actually is fully recognizing, regulating activity from point A to point Z. So you can decriminalize, for example, personal use and possession. But if every behavior up to that point is still illegal, you have an island of maybe legal or decriminalized behavior in a sea of illegal behavior. So they get through all this illegal behavior to get to the legal behavior. And I think legalization implies a full spectrum, regulated approach to the whole piece.

Ismail, you do think that ultimately the goal would be to legalize all drugs. Why?

I do think that legal, regulated access is likely the best environment for a number of drugs, but I think it’s going to depend very much on the substance itself, and factors that have to do with the supply and demand questions with respect to where and how it’s produced. Not having a legally regulated system puts us in a position where the very, very large and lucrative drug trade, which exists, whether or not there’s a regulated industry, entirely is captured by underground actors with various levels of ethics and morals. And I think that that whole conversation around legal access must also look at — and has looked at, historically — the uptake of all substances in illegal markets, and then the effects of those behaviors. My mother’s family is Colombian, and they left Colombia in the 1980s as a result in part of the massive increase in cocaine violence and cartel use. And that continued underground. Engagement has not really ceased — not just with cocaine, but with a number of other drugs. And even Colombia now is having a very serious conversation at the governmental level about what it would look like to legally regulate cocaine, because — despite pressure from the U.S. and other actors, they have realized that, actually, having some sort of legally regulated system could be the way to reduce the violence in the country. So while I do think that legalizing drugs, which sounds like such a scary thing to a lot of people, really means bringing them under more regulatory control. It’s hard, I think, to really think through what an effective addiction response strategy at the social level would be while we’re under an environment of prohibition, because prohibition does exacerbate some of those secondary effects of drugs, like, for example, addiction independence.

I’m curious as to your thoughts, Jonathan, on decriminalization versus legalization.

These have to be decided drug by drug. Drugs are different. For a long time, we’ve had caffeine be legal. That was probably fine. I don’t think that it’s — one should be cavalier about other substances. Opioids make the point. The prescription opioid crisis was a crisis that killed tens of thousands of people every year for a drug that was highly regulated, much more so than the typical recreational drug. Opioids are intrinsically dangerous, much more so than caffeine or cannabis. It has to be decided on a case by case basis.

I think that that’s something that’s also important to note here, is that, for instance, in Oregon — Oregon just passed Measure 110, which makes possession of small amounts of LSD, methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin punishable by a civil citation. That is not legalization. That is decriminalization. So I’m interested, Jonathan, can you talk about — when we’re talking about decriminalization, it sounds to me that it is still a civil penalty in Oregon to possess these — crimes. It’s like a traffic ticket, but that’s still a crime-ish.

Yeah, with the ish. The other thing it’s important to say is that, usually, when people talk decriminalization, they’re talking about decriminalizing or changing the consequences for people possessing amounts suitable for personal use. Whereas if you just say legalize, without any qualification, the presumption is you’re legalizing supply. So there is a big difference there. And sometimes it helps to keep them straight by remembering a third term, which is legalizing use. So decriminalization is usually reducing penalties for use so that you don’t have people getting a criminal record for use. Then you can go a step farther, as Ismail was saying, and legalize use, meaning you don’t even get the equivalent of a fine or a traffic ticket. Both of those are very different than legalizing supply.

Jonathan, you made a really fascinating argument in a piece called “The Drug Policy Roulette,” and I’d like you to explain more about this, because it actually was counterintuitive for me, which is — my view was that legalizing drugs would do what the end of Prohibition did for alcohol, which is when you aren’t legally allowed to drink, you can drink all the time. But with the end of Prohibition and with a regulated alcohol market, you have places — you have counties that are dry. You have a liquor store that can only be open from this time to this time. There are prohibitions on drunk driving, and societal prohibitions against when you can — like, drinking in the morning, drinking by yourself, this is looked down on. And I think societal prohibitions play into how we think about using drugs and alcohol anyway. But in the case of drugs, you made the point in this piece that one of the issues that would be unexpected from this is that prohibition makes drugs expensive, and that drugs like heroin and cocaine would actually be pretty cheap to obtain if they were legalized, because a part of what makes them expensive is what’s called compensating wage differentials. Namely, it’s really hard to bring cocaine into the United States. You are paying for the cost of how hard it is to bring cocaine into the United States. But with that price collapse, the taxes required to make it so that you weren’t just having cheap cocaine everywhere would be incredibly high, which would then contribute to the kind of gray market smuggling that we see with cigarette smuggling in the United States and in other countries. This is a financial issue I had never thought about.

Sure. The first point is that prohibition prevents one from producing these things in straightforward ways. None of the drugs are hard to produce. If it was legal and you could allow a regular company to do it, then they become very cheap. You can see that, for instance, just in the price of cocaine in Colombia is about 1 percent or 2 percent what it is in the streets in the United States. And the illegal distribution system effectively charges $15,000 to move a kilogram from Bogota to New York City that would cost $70 on FedEx. So prohibition makes things far more expensive than it would be if they were legal. As a practical matter, there’s no way that we will have taxes high enough to prevent prices from declining substantially. And that is in part because there probably wouldn’t be the political will, but also in part because of practicalities. Drugs are very potent in the sense that it doesn’t take very much material. A daily cannabis user using one and a half grams a day consumes only a little more than a pound over a year, about the same weight as one 20 ounce can of beer. So we just can’t effectively collect very high taxes on these easy to smuggle commodities.

Yeah, and many people have talked now for some years about this concept, the Iron Law of Prohibition, which maybe it would be good to bring in here, which is essentially the idea that because smuggling is such a lucrative activity, and because smuggling smaller things, more concentrated substances is easier, it actually incentivizes higher concentrations of substances to be taken across borders. So for example, if you want to take enough heroin for 500 people, you need a trunk of a car. If you want to take enough fentanyl for 500 people, you need something about the size of your phone or maybe much, much, much smaller. So there might be the case where as smuggling gets more difficult, it’s actually incentivizing higher concentrations of drugs, because it’s easier to smuggle those drugs as opposed to ones that take up more physical space.

Well, we should unpack this, though. I mean, the movement from heroin to fentanyl is not a response to a change in the legal status of either substance. But the Iron Law of Prohibition has been completely refuted by the experience with cannabis legalization. It’s the iron law that holds no water. Cannabis did not exceed average potency of 5 percent until 2000, and now it’s — typical flower potency in a legal stores is over 20 percent. And we now have common use of vapes and dabs, which are much more potent than that. So the Iron Law of Prohibition has just been disproved by experience with cannabis legalization.

I’d probably push back on that a bit, because cannabis is also produced in state. We’re not talking as much about taking things across borders, but the big difference is that with a lot of cannabis products, they’re being produced at the place or near the place they’re being used, which is different from things that are crossing international borders.

The weight of drugs doesn’t matter much at all after they are legal, because the weight is so small. Again, I make reference this —

Yeah, no. I agree after they are legal, for sure.

So it doesn’t matter that at the moment we’re in this weird situation where we have a bunch of state specific markets. That’s a temporary artifact of the fact that there’s not yet national legalization. Once there’s national legalization, we can no longer have these state specific markets because of the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution.

Jonathan, you brought up the opioid crisis. And I think that there have been a host of people who’ve written on how they used to support drug legalization. And the opioid epidemic and how it took place changed their minds. And I want to point to a great piece — my former colleague at Vox, German Lopez, wrote about this, where he said that essentially with opioids, you had companies that got a hold of a product. They marketed it irresponsibly and lobbied for lax rules in influencing government, and people died. As he points out, the United States historically is very bad at regulating drugs. Ismail, does the experience of the opioid epidemic — has that changed your viewpoint on what legalization would look like?

No, because I don’t see legalization as only a question of the regulations that have to do with the drug. I think that there are factors beyond just the way opioids are regulated and are regulated that has to do with why there’s a crisis today. And I actually personally tend to frame it as an overdose crisis. I do think opioids are a big part of that. But if you’ve been following the numbers for the last couple of years, it’s absolutely the case that overdoses with methamphetamine and other drugs are also extremely intensely increasing. And the way that, as you said, a certain framework of pharmaceutical regulation has operated with certain opioids is such a good example of what I imagine legalization to be. Like, I think if I were putting together a thinking through with people — what would be an ideal legalization scheme? And I really agree with what Jonathan said, where it’s a case by case basis. And there may be drugs that don’t need or shouldn’t have fully legally regulated systems, and maybe decriminalization is the appropriate environment for that. And maybe decriminalization of certain kinds of behaviors — and I think one really good example that feels like it’s at the center of this is this question about advertising and marketing. I think that what companies are allowed to say, what claims they’re allowed to make, how they’re allowed to advertise, what expectations are setting with consumers — those factors are pretty significant. That’s not to say that if there wasn’t the aggressive marketing campaign with some of these opioids that we’d be in the same or a different position today. It’s really difficult to tell. It’s a system that has been highly affected by interests that are not in that of the consumer, not in the interest of the public. When society was flooded with cigarette ads, a lot of people started smoking more cigarettes. That’s not — and of course, there’s a risk to smoking cigarettes. But to me, that’s an artificial pressure that comes from the market and its incentives. And I think that once you take out some of those things to the extent that that’s possible in a legal market, you might actually be able to adjust some of those outcomes.

But I think that’s the point. It’s easy to imagine an ideal legalization, but that’s not what we’re going to get. We’re going to get the legalization that comes out of our political process and institutions. And marketing is the concrete example. Once a product is legalized, the companies that produce it will enjoy First Amendment commercial free speech protections that will allow them to market.

Should they?

It doesn’t matter whether they should or should not. In the United States, under our Constitution, which protects commercial free speech, they will. In another country, with a different constitution, the government would have greater power to restrict advertising. Many of the current restrictions on cannabis advertising only are constitutional because it is still illegal under federal law.

Yeah, I spent a brief time looking at some of the ads that were made for OxyContin. And there’s one that says that, when you know acetaminophen won’t be enough, OxyContin 12 Hour — which is, like, acetaminophen is Tylenol. And going from Tylenol to OxyContin is a real — it’s a real leap. But I think that gets to something I’m curious about — because the United States has been a leader in determining the control of drug trade and practice, Jonathan, how do you think hypothetically that a legalization or decriminalization would impact international markets? Do you think that there would be a collapse in the price, internationally, of cocaine or heroin? What would that even look like?

Yeah, it’s a great question. And sort of the short answer is that in any place that legalizes and allows for profit industry, you’re going to see a price collapse. And because these things are so easy to smuggle, that would put downward pressure on other countries that are connected commercially to the country that legalized. And in an interconnected world, that’s a lot of places. You’re seeing some of this already, even without legalization, from the switch to synthetics which can be produced anywhere and are easier to produce surreptitiously than with crop based products. And legalization would be a little bit like the innovation of fentanyl coming into the market. It would greatly reduce the cost of production. And over time, that puts downward pressure on prices.

Ismail, I know that your organization has been thinking a lot about this with regard to psychedelics, so whether that’s LSD, whether that’s the use with MDMA in Oregon and other places, psychedelics and the use of psychedelics is getting increasing state support. The California State Senate in June of this year passed a bill that would legalize the social sharing and possession and use of psychedelics. It’s something that’s coming around. What does that look like, and how has your organization participated in that conversation?

Yeah, a couple of things. So I work for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which was founded in 1986 after MDMA was criminalized in an emergency scheduling decision by the D.E.A. MDMA — best known as the active ingredient in ecstasy. It’s now— through MAPS and the Public Benefit Corporation, which we work with — in that entity is taking MDMA through the F.D.A. process, with the intention of having it recognized as a prescription medicine. But while we’re focusing primarily on MDMA, it’s absolutely the case that one of the large goals and kind of value systems that MAPS has utilized over the last 35 years is toward legal, regulated access for psychedelic substances, and specifically, in a legal, medical, or cultural context. And while my personal perspective on this does have to do with really shifting drug laws for all of the substances involved, it is absolutely true that psychedelics are experiencing a kind of like zeitgeist, or some sort of like resurgence in society, now that we have a couple of decades of solid clinical and observational data, you know, depending on the substance, depending on the environment, that show that they may have benefits for certain people in certain mental health contexts. That’s happening simultaneously to this renewed awareness of the spiritual use of some of these substances in certain contexts, which regulatory and structurally speaking, looks very different from like a medicalized, or like, a medical adjacent system. So you mentioned Measure 110 in Oregon. At the same time, Oregon also passed Measure 109, which is a legal psilocybin services system, and psilocybin being the active ingredient in what people call magic mushrooms. And that’s relevant, because it’s actually the first legalized, or attempt at a legalized regulated system for access to one of these substances aside from cannabis. And I’ll just say — to kind of close this thought — that psychedelics are an interesting bridge, because while I think some people want them to be the silver bullet for mental health. And they have all these benefits, and it’s certainly true that for certain people and in certain contexts, they do have tremendous benefit. But they do come with risks. And the thing about psychedelics is that they’re actually more known for their psychological risks as opposed to their physical risks.

And that’s a really interesting thing, because it brings up how we actually navigate and handle mental health in the United States.

I want to push back very lightly on that, because I think that when — in D.C., the language around the decriminalization of mushrooms, which I supported, it very much implied that not only should mushrooms be decriminalized, but that you should do them.

I think that this gets into the question of — we don’t necessarily exist in the ideal regulatory and cultural marketplace for legalized psychedelics or legalized drugs in general. And I’m curious as to how you’re thinking about how, yes, it would be fantastic if these drugs would be used in these safe contexts, in these — whether secular or religious ceremonies, or with the right groups of people. But they won’t be. And I’m curious how you’re thinking about this.

Well, this brings me to the question of education, which we haven’t touched on too much in this conversation yet. I think that the current legal status of psychedelics has — and all drugs - has significantly warped the education that people receive about them. I was part of the DARE generation, and when I learned that —

Oh, I was too.

I was too. Some would say it did not prove effective.

Totally. Do you remember the doobies with the big googly eyes, like, they’re going to come get you. Like, when I learned that methamphetamine and marijuana were not the same, that were they were not equally dangerous, which is what I was taught in sixth grade, I experienced a big rupture where I actually — it was probably the beginning for me of beginning to really doubt what education I was receiving, not just about drugs, but about other things in general. And I would say now, especially looking back at what feels like propaganda for the drug war, it makes it really difficult to trust what kind of education and information people are getting. So to answer your question, you’re right. There’s absolutely no way to control the way people use drugs. Like, there’s no guarantee that even with the best regulatory system and the best policy in every way, people will use them the way that we want every time. However, I do think that stigma and misinformation and drug hysteria contributes to people using drugs in less educated ways. And that’s not to say that more information would fix the overdose crisis. It would not fix a lot of these issues with addiction. But I do think that with psychedelics specifically and especially, better education about the environment would make quite a big difference. One of the most persuasive things I can say when I’m doing advocacy work around psychedelics is that psychedelic therapy is not that fun. I mean, it is true that people can have super ecstatic and joyous experiences with psychedelics, but psychedelic therapy as a treatment modality is actually quite challenging. And dealing with one’s own internalized trauma is not a particularly fun process. It’s not something you want to do at a festival surrounded by your friends. You want to do it in a safe place, maybe with a blanket and some chill music going on, in a room where you can do that with people who you can trust. So it’s — a lot of that has to do with the environment that people are in. And because all psychedelics are equally illegal and you can’t do them anywhere, then that means you can do them anywhere, you know.

Yeah, when you’re surrounded by 90,000 people, it’s maybe not the best time to maybe encounter God.

On the psychedelics, the people who are optimistic about legalization are often very optimistic about the potential of education. My caution is when you allow a for profit industry, a lot of the education, quote unquote, is going to be provided by the industry. You referred earlier to — I may get the details wrong, but I think it might have been a Purdue advertisement that said when Tylenol is not enough, take Oxy. I mean, I don’t have the details right, but that is them trying to educate you about the right — in their mind — set and setting for drug use, not for your benefit, but for their profits’ benefit. Legalizing supply is night and day different than just decriminalizing. The power of the market that is unleashed when you create corporations that make money by inducing greater use of their product, coupled with — intrinsically, some of these products are appealing or addictive — that’s a potent combination we need to be very careful about.

Hi, Jane. My name is Blake and I live in Boston. One thought that’s been occupying my mind, and something I talked to my dad and family about, is on cryptocurrency — in particular, Bitcoin. And I guess one thing that I’ve been struggling with is trying to determine whether I believe it’s something that’s going to stick around or if it’s just a fad. It’s been really hard for me to find sources that are objective and look at both sides of the coin, no pun intended there. Thanks so much. Take care.

Hi Blake. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on cryptocurrency, but I think the question isn’t it a fad, or is it something that’s going to stick around forever, because the answer to both of those can be yes. I don’t think cryptocurrency is going to save the world. I also think that it’s going to be around for a long time. And it’s something that I’d like to learn more about. But I have a feeling that both sides tend to overstate either the importance or the lack of importance of cryptocurrency. That seems to be how this kind of thing goes.

What are you arguing about with your family, your friends, your frenemies? Tell me about the big debate you’re having in a voicemail by calling 347-915-4324, and we might play an excerpt of it on a future episode. Jonathan, can you talk a little bit about overdoses and the potential health impacts?

Opioids are particularly dangerous in terms of overdose risk, but what makes them less problematic because we do have pharmacological therapies for them, methadone being the original and most famous — perhaps buprenorphine. We do not have anything like that in terms of pharmacotherapies for the common stimulants. And it makes a difference, because if you’re going to legalize — particularly legalize supply, allow for profit companies to promote the use, you’re going to get more use. You’ll get more dependence. And it’s a very different thing. If you are choosing policies that promote dependence to something for which there is no real effective treatment, as opposed to opioids — it’s not that opioids are gentle, but we do at least have a treatment.

Ismail, how do we think about recovery, and how do we think about the aftershocks of legalization? I’m just curious how you think about addiction in this conversation.

Yeah, I have what might be a slightly unpopular opinion, especially in today’s time. Like, addiction itself — let’s say, like, drug dependency, to be a little more specific — itself, I don’t necessarily see as a social harm or a social bad. I think that a lot of people manage a lot of addictions totally fine, regularly, because it’s not disruptive to them, because they have access to a safe supply of what it is that they’re addicted to. Of course, the effects of a caffeine addiction or caffeine dependency are significantly less dramatic and less likely to cause some sort of antisocial behavior than a withdrawal from a different substance. But I think that what both Jonathan and you have mentioned, Jane, that I think is more relevant, has to do with the consequences and the secondary effects — of course, on the individual, but especially on society. Alcohol is a great example, because we do have what people would consider a safe supply of alcohol. It’s a regulated product with tons and tons of social externalities that are still there. The difference is that the purchase, the manufacture, the use of alcohol — if criminalized, I believe, would make our current alcohol related issues worse. But I do think that the big difference with other substances is that because they’re criminalized, you have all of those effects, those secondary antisocial effects of dependence or antisocial use, et cetera. And you have the additional layer of criminalization for the use itself. I’m curious about — especially Jonathan’s perspective on this, because there are examples where certain countries like Switzerland are using heroin to manage heroin addiction. Right, they’re actually allowing people to have a safe, consistent supply of heroin. In places like Portugal and Spain, you have a huge percentage of people who were on heroin in the ‘80s and ‘90s who’ve transitioned onto methadone, and are still on methadone decades later. But they’re able to have jobs. They’re able to have families. They’re able to do x, y, z — so.

I think this gets right to the heart of where you and I differ, if I may. I mean, on the last — we had legal supply of prescription opioids and still had a lot of overdoses. There’s no question that an inconsistent supply exacerbates the problem. But I don’t think legal supply of opioids would eliminate overdoses. But to be more fundamental about it, you and I differ on whether or not legal supply necessarily can stabilize a person who is dependent on the substance. To me, that’s substance specific. Caffeine and nicotine are two drugs for which if you have legal supply that is not adulterated and so on, the person can function in everyday life just fine, even if they are dependent. But for the stimulants — crack, methamphetamine, and for alcohol, just providing abundant amounts of unadulterated, free supply does not let those people stabilize their lives. And that has terrible repercussions for them and their families.

Yeah and I would just — to clarify, I don’t necessarily think that an uninterrupted, as much as you want, supply of any drug is going to be good for everyone. Like, I —

Well, that’s what for profit companies are going to want to supply if we legalize.

But there is nuance there. But my question — actually, back to you is — I wonder about your thoughts about why there hasn’t been the same — because while there is a tremendous amount of methamphetamine use, it’s not the case as far as I understand that the increase in methamphetamine use is a result of increased, for example, prescribing of dexamphetamine or other amphetamine analogs that are legal for various treatments, whereas you do see a little bit more of that shift from prescription opioids to underground use of opiates with that market. So I hear what you’re saying. And it seems to be the case that a regulated, safe supply of something like Adderall actually doesn’t have the same effect as in bringing people into a super unregulated, dangerous, unadulterated market in the same way you see with opioids. And it’s true that we also don’t have the pharmaceutical interventions for stimulants as we do with opioids, but I wonder what makes that different. Why are people going to meth in that way versus the other?

Yes, stimulants is a broad category. And some of them are tougher than others. I mean, at some level caffeine is a stimulant, but it’s not a very powerful one, to speak informally, whereas methamphetamine definitely is. Adderall is more on the caffeine end of the spectrum, blessedly, although there is actually some diversion of Adderall. But it’s a different feel. This is like somebody with access to Adderall selling it or giving it to their friend in college to help them study, because they think it’s going to be a performance enhancing smart drug. But on the whole —

I’ve never I’ve never heard of that happening, ever — definitely don’t know anything about that.

Adderall’s worth talking about for a minute here, because it does illustrate the phenomenon that — the trick with providing generous supply to some people is, in part, can they make money by diverting it to other people — money, or do favors for friends. The prescription opioids got out of control for a whole bunch of reasons, many reasons. But one of them was the fact that there was already this value in the illegal market. And you also could seek a prescription based on symptoms that could not be objectively assessed by the clinician. And that combination was a problem. You could show up and say, oh, my back hurts a lot. Give me these things for the cost of a co-pay, and I can turn around and sell them for a lot of money. We’re going to always be vulnerable if you, through the medical system, provide subsidized access to anything for which there is demand in the illegal market. And Adderall does have that character. It just fortunately is nowhere near as bad for you, or risk of overdose, as the opioids were.

Yeah, or meth. I hear that. That makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that answer. And also I think that the other factor, especially with regulated stimulants — and this is, I think also one of the questions with respect to regulations in general, which is method of administration. Because I do think that the fact that you don’t have smokable amphetamines or injectable amphetamines through regulated system also means that people who are accessing it through a regulated market tend to be doing it in a way that’s not going to have the same super rapid onset, and then related withdrawal, et cetera that you might have with methamphetamine use or other related things.

Yeah, I’ll agree with that. And then it’s also location of administration. So cocaine is available as a medicine. It turns out to be a vasoconstrictor and topical anesthetic that’s useful in minor surgeries. We have no problem with diversion of medical cocaine to illegal markets, because it’s only used inside the medical facility, administered by the clinician. So if we were to talk about, like, psychedelics used by a psychiatrist, on site, under supervision, that sort of medical use would have next to no risk of diversion to a market. But if we were ever to say to somebody, here are two pills a day for the next month. Take them home, do what you want with them. Then, there’s much greater risk of some of those being diverted into the market.

Yeah, and just to clarify — the way that psychedelics are being incorporated into health care now, it’s more like a procedure or a surgery than it is like other psychiatric interventions, where it actually is in the presence of a therapist or a psychiatrist or someone who has specific training to work with both these altered states of consciousness as well with the substances themselves.

Jonathan, I’m curious. Are we asking some of the wrong questions about consumption and distribution if we’re thinking about something as big as what decriminalization or legalization of substances beyond marijuana would look like?

Well, first of all, the bigness of decriminalize and legalize are very, very different. Decriminalization would be a big change, but it’s not a change the world. Legalization of supply, that’s totally different. You said that’s a big shake up. It’s a once in a century event. I would just stress — it’s a once and for all time event. Once you create a legal industry, it’s going to be really hard to get rid of it. When you create a legal industry, you create a powerful lobbying force. One of the challenges we have is regulatory capture. It’s already starting with cannabis. We haven’t even gotten to national legalization yet. But you just presume- - if you’re going to legalize supply of something, presume that there will be regulatory capture, presume you will never go back. And presume that a lot of the regulations are actually going to be shaped by what’s in the industry interests much more so than public health. Public health doesn’t tend to win in the lobbying battles against industry.

I totally agree that legalizing drugs, legalizing supply would be a generational event. It would be a massive, massive shift in the way things are done — even though, as I like to remind people, drugs were legal and traded until about 100 years ago. And it was US pressure on international actors that really brought us into the realm of prohibition that we have now — among others, because even large colonial powers, the Dutch and the English and others, were very happily trading a lot of these drugs for a long time before prohibition in its current form existed. So I also think that we are in a new paradigm in the sense that people have much more awareness and a willingness to talk through the stigma around the dependency and addiction and so on. And that does give me hope, that as we look at these questions around advertising and marketing and so on, that maybe it is possible that these public health perspectives could be better considered. I hope that our experience with tobacco and with opioids could lead to a more rational drug policy with respect to legal access of other substances. That could be naively optimistic, but I feel like as a policy reform advocate, if I’m not somewhat optimistic, then there’s really no point to going forward. And I think it’s really good to have some level of possibility for what there could be beyond where — we currently are.

I admire that optimism. I’m usually the one who’s accused of being optimistic. Compared to you, I guess I’m the jaded, cynical one. We’ll see.

Jonathan, Ismail, thank you so much for joining me. And I really appreciated this conversation.

Good. It was a joy to be here.

Thanks so much, Jonathan. Thank you so much, Jane.

Ismail Ali is a Policy and Advocacy Director at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Jonathan P. Caulkins is the H. Guyford Stever University Professor of Operations, Research, and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. If you want to learn more about drug policy of the United States, I recommend “Is There A Case For Legalizing Heroin” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker, published in April of 2021. For the other side, you can read “The Drug Policy Roulette” by Jonathan P. Caulkins and Michael A.C. Lee in the National Affairs Summer 2012 edition. And listen to “Michael Pollan’s ‘Trip Report,’” an episode on The New York Times opinion podcast “Sway.” You can find links to all of these in our episode notes.

“The Argument” is a production of New York Times opinion. It’s produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez, and Vishakha Darbha, edited by Alison Bruzek and Sarah Geis, with original music and sound design by Isaac Jones. Additional engineering by Carole Sabouraud, and additional mixing by Sonia Herrero. Fact checking by Kate Sinclair, and audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks this week to Kristin Lin.

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Medical marijuana is now legal in more than half of the country . The cities of Denver, Seattle , Washington and Oakland, Calif., have also decriminalized psilocybin (the psychedelic element in “magic mushrooms”). Oregon went one step further, decriminalizing all drugs in small quantities, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Attitudes toward drugs have changed considerably over the years. But the question of whether all drugs should be legalized continues to be contentious. How much have attitudes toward illegal drugs changed? And why?

[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple , Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts .]

This week, Jane Coaston talks to Ismail Ali, the policy and advocacy director for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and Jonathan P. Caulkins, a professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, about the pros and cons of legalizing all drugs.

Mentioned in this episode:

“ Is there a Case for Legalizing Heroin? ” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in The New Yorker

“ The Drug-Policy Roulette ” by Jonathan P. Caulkins and Michael A.C. Lee in the National Affairs Summer 2012 edition

“ Michael Pollan’s ‘Trip Report,’ ” on The New York Times Opinion podcast “Sway”

(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)

By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.

“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha and edited by Alison Bruzek and Sarah Geis; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Sonia Herrero, and audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.

Drug Legalization?: Time for a real debate

Subscribe to governance weekly, paul stares ps paul stares.

March 1, 1996

• 11 min read

Whether Bill Clinton “inhaled” when trying marijuana as a college student was about the closest the last presidential campaign came to addressing the drug issue. The present one, however, could be very different. For the fourth straight year, a federally supported nationwide survey of American secondary school students by the University of Michigan has indicated increased drug use. After a decade or more in which drug use had been falling, the Republicans will assuredly blame the bad news on President Clinton and assail him for failing to carry on the Bush and Reagan administrations’ high-profile stand against drugs. How big this issue becomes is less certain, but if the worrisome trend in drug use among teens continues, public debate about how best to respond to the drug problem will clearly not end with the election. Indeed, concern is already mounting that the large wave of teenagers—the group most at risk of taking drugs—that will crest around the turn of the century will be accompanied by a new surge in drug use.

As in the past, some observers will doubtless see the solution in much tougher penalties to deter both suppliers and consumers of illicit psychoactive substances. Others will argue that the answer lies not in more law enforcement and stiffer sanctions, but in less. Specifically, they will maintain that the edifice of domestic laws and international conventions that collectively prohibit the production, sale, and consumption of a large array of drugs for anything other than medical or scientific purposes has proven physically harmful, socially divisive, prohibitively expensive, and ultimately counterproductive in generating the very incentives that perpetuate a violent black market for illicit drugs. They will conclude, moreover, that the only logical step for the United States to take is to “legalize” drugs—in essence repeal and disband the current drug laws and enforcement mechanisms in much the same way America abandoned its brief experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.

Although the legalization alternative typically surfaces when the public’s anxiety about drugs and despair over existing policies are at their highest, it never seems to slip off the media radar screen for long. Periodic incidents—such as the heroin-induced death of a young, affluent New York City couple in 1995 or the 1993 remark by then Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders that legalization might be beneficial and should be studied—ensure this. The prominence of many of those who have at various times made the case for legalization—such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman, and George Shultz—also helps. But each time the issue of legalization arises, the same arguments for and against are dusted off and trotted out, leaving us with no clearer understanding of what it might entail and what the effect might be.

As will become clear, drug legalization is not a public policy option that lends itself to simplistic or superficial debate. It requires dissection and scrutiny of an order that has been remarkably absent despite the attention it perennially receives. Beyond discussion of some very generally defined proposals, there has been no detailed assessment of the operational meaning of legalization. There is not even a commonly accepted lexicon of terms to allow an intellectually rigorous exchange to take place. Legalization, as a consequence, has come to mean different things to different people. Some, for example, use legalization interchangeably with “decriminalization,” which usually refers to removing criminal sanctions for possessing small quantities of drugs for personal use. Others equate legalization, at least implicitly, with complete deregulation, failing in the process to acknowledge the extent to which currently legally available drugs are subject to stringent controls.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government—including the Clinton administration—has done little to improve the debate. Although it has consistently rejected any retreat from prohibition, its stance has evidently not been based on in- depth investigation of the potential costs and benefits. The belief that legalization would lead to an instant and dramatic increase in drug use is considered to be so self-evident as to warrant no further study. But if this is indeed the likely conclusion of any study, what is there to fear aside from criticism that relatively small amounts of taxpayer money had been wasted in demonstrating what everyone had believed at the outset? Wouldn’t such an outcome in any case help justify the continuation of existing policies and convincingly silence those—admittedly never more than a small minority—calling for legalization?

A real debate that acknowledges the unavoidable complexities and uncertainties surrounding the notion of drug legalization is long overdue. Not only would it dissuade people from making the kinds of casual if not flippant assertions—both for and against—that have permeated previous debates about legalization, but it could also stimulate a larger and equally critical assessment of current U.S. drug control programs and priorities.

First Ask the Right Questions

Many arguments appear to make legalization a compelling alternative to today’s prohibitionist policies. Besides undermining the black-market incentives to produce and sell drugs, legalization could remove or at least significantly reduce the very problems that cause the greatest public concern: the crime, corruption, and violence that attend the operation of illicit drug markets. It would presumably also diminish the damage caused by the absence of quality controls on illicit drugs and slow the spread of infectious diseases due to needle sharing and other unhygienic practices. Furthermore, governments could abandon the costly and largely futile effort to suppress the supply of illicit drugs and jail drug offenders, spending the money thus saved to educate people not to take drugs and treat those who become addicted.

However, what is typically portrayed as a fairly straightforward process of lifting prohibitionist controls to reap these putative benefits would in reality entail addressing an extremely complex set of regulatory issues. As with most if not all privately and publicly provided goods, the key regulatory questions concern the nature of the legally available drugs, the terms of their supply, and the terms of their consumption (see page 21).

What becomes immediately apparent from even a casual review of these questions—and the list presented here is by no means exhaustive—is that there is an enormous range of regulatory permutations for each drug. Until all the principal alternatives are clearly laid out in reasonable detail, however, the potential costs and benefits of each cannot begin to be responsibly assessed. This fundamental point can be illustrated with respect to the two central questions most likely to sway public opinion. What would happen to drug consumption under more permissive regulatory regimes? And what would happen to crime?

Relaxing the availability of psychoactive substances not already commercially available, opponents typically argue, would lead to an immediate and substantial rise in consumption. To support their claim, they point to the prevalence of opium, heroin, and cocaine addiction in various countries before international controls took effect, the rise in alcohol consumption after the Volstead Act was repealed in the United States, and studies showing higher rates of abuse among medical professionals with greater access to prescription drugs. Without explaining the basis of their calculations, some have predicted dramatic increases in the number of people taking drugs and becoming addicted. These increases would translate into considerable direct and indirect costs to society, including higher public health spending as a result of drug overdoses, fetal deformities, and other drug-related misadventures such as auto accidents; loss of productivity due to worker absenteeism and on-the-job accidents; and more drug-induced violence, child abuse, and other crimes, to say nothing about educational impairment.

Advocates of legalization concede that consumption would probably rise, but counter that it is not axiomatic that the increase would be very large or last very long, especially if legalization were paired with appropriate public education programs. They too cite historical evidence to bolster their claims, noting that consumption of opium, heroin, and cocaine had already begun falling before prohibition took effect, that alcohol consumption did not rise suddenly after prohibition was lifted, and that decriminalization of cannabis use in 11 U.S. states in the 1970s did not precipitate a dramatic rise in its consumption. Some also point to the legal sale of cannabis products through regulated outlets in the Netherlands, which also does not seem to have significantly boosted use by Dutch nationals. Public opinion polls showing that most Americans would not rush off to try hitherto forbidden drugs that suddenly became available are likewise used to buttress the pro-legalization case.

Neither side’s arguments are particularly reassuring. The historical evidence is ambiguous at best, even assuming that the experience of one era is relevant to another. Extrapolating the results of policy steps in one country to another with different sociocultural values runs into the same problem. Similarly, within the United States the effect of decriminalization at the state level must be viewed within the general context of continued federal prohibition. And opinion polls are known to be unreliable.

More to the point, until the nature of the putative regulatory regime is specified, such discussions are futile. It would be surprising, for example, if consumption of the legalized drugs did not increase if they were to become commercially available the way that alcohol and tobacco products are today, complete with sophisticated packaging, marketing, and advertising. But more restrictive regimes might see quite different outcomes. In any case, the risk of higher drug consumption might be acceptable if legalization could reduce dramatically if not remove entirely the crime associated with the black market for illicit drugs while also making some forms of drug use safer. Here again, there are disputed claims.

Opponents of more permissive regimes doubt that black market activity and its associated problems would disappear or even fall very much. But, as before, addressing this question requires knowing the specifics of the regulatory regime, especially the terms of supply. If drugs are sold openly on a commercial basis and prices are close to production and distribution costs, opportunities for illicit undercutting would appear to be rather small. Under a more restrictive regime, such as government-controlled outlets or medical prescription schemes, illicit sources of supply would be more likely to remain or evolve to satisfy the legally unfulfilled demand. In short, the desire to control access to stem consumption has to be balanced against the black market opportunities that would arise. Schemes that risk a continuing black market require more questions—about the new black markets operation over time, whether it is likely to be more benign than existing ones, and more broadly whether the trade-off with other benefits still makes the effort worthwhile.

The most obvious case is regulating access to drugs by adolescents and young adults. Under any regime, it is hard to imagine that drugs that are now prohibited would become more readily available than alcohol and tobacco are today. Would a black market in drugs for teenagers emerge, or would the regulatory regime be as leaky as the present one for alcohol and tobacco? A “yes” answer to either question would lessen the attractiveness of legalization.

What about the International Repercussions?

Not surprisingly, the wider international ramifications of drug legalization have also gone largely unremarked. Here too a long set of questions remains to be addressed. Given the longstanding U.S. role as the principal sponsor of international drug control measures, how would a decision to move toward legalizing drugs affect other countries? What would become of the extensive regime of multilateral conventions and bilateral agreements? Would every nation have to conform to a new set of rules? If not, what would happen? Would more permissive countries be suddenly swamped by drugs and drug consumers, or would traffickers focus on the countries where tighter restrictions kept profits higher? This is not an abstract question. The Netherlands’ liberal drug policy has attracted an influx of “drug tourists” from neighboring countries, as did the city of Zurich’s following the now abandoned experiment allowing an open drug market to operate in what became known as “Needle Park.” And while it is conceivable that affluent countries could soften the worst consequences of drug legalization through extensive public prevention and drug treatment programs, what about poorer countries?

Finally, what would happen to the principal suppliers of illicit drugs if restrictions on the commercial sale of these drugs were lifted in some or all of the main markets? Would the trafficking organizations adapt and become legal businesses or turn to other illicit enterprises? What would happen to the source countries? Would they benefit or would new producers and manufacturers suddenly spring up elsewhere? Such questions have not even been posed in a systematic way, let alone seriously studied.

Irreducible Uncertainties

Although greater precision in defining more permissive regulatory regimes is critical to evaluating their potential costs and benefits, it will not resolve the uncertainties that exist. Only implementation will do that. Because small-scale experimentation (assuming a particular locality’s consent to be a guinea pig) would inevitably invite complaints that the results were biased or inconclusive, implementation would presumably have to be widespread, even global, in nature.

Yet jettisoning nearly a century of prohibition when the putative benefits remain so uncertain and the potential costs are so high would require a herculean leap of faith. Only an extremely severe and widespread deterioration of the current drug situation, nationally and internationally—is likely to produce the consensus—again, nationally and internationally that could impel such a leap. Even then the legislative challenge would be stupendous. The debate over how to set the conditions for controlling access to each of a dozen popular drugs could consume the legislatures of the major industrial countries for years.

None of this should deter further analysis of drug legalization. In particular, a rigorous assessment of a range of hypothetical regulatory regimes according to a common set of variables would clarify their potential costs, benefits, and trade- offs. Besides instilling much-needed rigor into any further discussion of the legalization alternative, such analysis could encourage the same level of scrutiny of current drug control programs and policies. With the situation apparently deteriorating in the United States as well as abroad, there is no better time for a fundamental reassessment of whether our existing responses to this problem are sufficient to meet the likely challenges ahead.

Governance Studies

Nicole Gastala, Harold Pollack, Vanda Felbab-Brown

August 27, 2024

Stuart M. Butler

August 23, 2024

Greg Midgette, Peter Reuter, Vanda Felbab-Brown

August 20, 2024

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Drug Legalization and Decriminalization Beliefs Among Substance-Using and Non-using Individuals

Associated data, objectives:.

There has been advocacy for legalization of abusable substances, but systematic data on societal beliefs regarding such legalization are limited. People who use substances may have unique beliefs about legalization, and this study assessed whether they would be in favor of drug legalization/decriminalization. It was hypothesized that those who use particular drugs (especially marijuana) would support its legalization/decriminalization, but that this would not be the case across all classes (especially opioids and stimulants).

A nationwide sample of 506 adults were surveyed online to assess demographic characteristics, substance misuse, and beliefs regarding drug legalization/decriminalization. Legalization/decriminalization beliefs for specific drugs were assessed on an 11-point scale (0=strongly disagree; 10=strongly agree).

For persons with opioid misuse (15.4%), when asked about their agreement with: “heroin should be legalized,” the mean score was 4.6 (SEE= 0.4; neutral). For persons with stimulant misuse (12.1%), when asked about their agreement with: “cocaine should be legalized,” the score was 4.2(0.5). However, for persons with marijuana misuse (34.0%), when asked about their agreement with: “medical marijuana should be legalized” the score was 8.2 (0.3; indicating agreement), and for “recreational marijuana” the score was also 8.2(0.3).

Conclusions:

These results suggest that persons who used marijuana strongly support the legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana, whereas persons who primarily have opioid or stimulant misuse have less strongly held beliefs about legalization of substances within those respective categories. By including those who misuse drugs, these data assist in framing discussions of drug legalization and have the potential to inform drug policy considerations.

1.0. Introduction

Substance use is a major concern in both the United States (US) and abroad, with important consequences related not only to morbidity and mortality, but legal and economic concerns as well. In 2010, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study found that mental illness was the leading cause of years living with disability worldwide, with illicit substance use disorders (SUDs) and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) accounting for 11% and 10% of disability-adjusted life years within that category, respectively ( Whiteford et al., 2013 ). The 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimates that 7.8% of adults in the US had a SUD during that year ( Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, 2017 ).

While much drug use remains illegal, there are growing efforts to legalize and/or decriminalize certain drug classes (such as marijuana and heroin), despite international drug treaties prohibiting the non-medical use of marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin ( Hall, 2017 ). This is related, in part, to evidence that drugs such as marijuana or heroin, which had been previously categorized as having no medicinal value, may have potential medical benefit. These efforts are also premised upon the experiences of countries like Portugal, which decriminalized all illicit drugs in 2001 and reported subsequent decreases in drug-related societal problems, as well as support for legalizing drugs like marijuana for non-medical use in countries such as Canada and Uruguay ( Room, 2014 ; Goncalves et al., 2015 ; Cox, 2018 ). Several European countries and Canada have now endorsed the use of medicinal injectable and oral heroin (diacetylmorphine or diamorphine) as an effective medication for heroin use disorder among persons who are not otherwise responding to treatments ( Ayanga et al., 2016 ).

The US is beginning to demonstrate varied support for drug legalization and decriminalization. For instance, although not formally supported by the US federal government, eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana, and twenty-nine states have legalized medicinal marijuana. However, systematic data on the opinions of Americans regarding the legalization/decriminalization of marijuana are lacking, and attitudes regarding the legalization/decriminalization of other substances are even sparser. Data show that the public’s opinions about marijuana seem to have changed over time ( Carliner et al., 2017 ), with 12% of the public supporting legalization in 1969 (based on survey data), compared with 61% per an online poll conducted in 2017 ( Geiger, 2018 ). Another recent online poll of registered US voters found that a modest majority (68%) was in support of legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, with 52% supporting its legalization for recreational purposes. However, this sample was vastly opposed to the legalization and decriminalization of other drugs (including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine), for both medical and recreational purposes ( Lopez, 2016 ).

Opinions about drug legalization/decriminalization can differ based on whether a person has a personal history of substance use and as a function of demographic and ideological characteristics (such a religious or political preference); these associations have only been evaluated in a few studies. The first such study was conducted in 2002 among 188 out-of-treatment persons who used substances, and persons who did not use substances, from low income, high drug-use sections of a US urban setting (Houston, TX), and reported that persons who used substances (marijuana, heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamine) were more likely to support the legalization of marijuana (68% in favor) than persons who did not use substances (33%), while each group showed little support for the legalization of heroin (12% vs. 8%) or cocaine (14% vs. 8%, respectively; Trevino and Richard, 2002 ). More recently, an online poll reported that Americans identifying as Democrats were more likely to be in favor of marijuana legalization (69%) than Republicans (43%). Also, white mainline Protestants were more in favor of marijuana legalization (64%) than white evangelical Protestants (38%) or Catholics (52%), while those who were not affiliated with any religion showed the highest support (78%; Geiger, 2018 ).

These polls have various limitations, and have not focused upon the attitudes and beliefs of people who use drugs. This population may have unique beliefs about legalization and/or decriminalization of a drug - either their drug of choice, or illicit drugs more broadly. The direct experience of using a drug might predispose a person to support more ready availability of that drug or, conversely, might make a person more cautious about decreasing barriers to its use. Survey data have demonstrated that opinions on drug legalization/decriminalization can differ based on the person’s belief system, such as varying as a function of political or religious affiliation. Persons who are generally more conservative may not be in favor of legalizing or decriminalizing substances. Surprisingly, there is little information on attitudes regarding legalization/decriminalization of drugs that systematically evaluates these domains. This study aimed to address this gap by surveying both persons who used substances and persons who did not use substances about their opinions regarding legalization and decriminalization of drugs, and to also evaluate whether differences in these attitudes were associated with different religious and political affiliations, or the lack thereof, as a secondary outcome. It was hypothesized that individuals who use marijuana would support the legalization and decriminalization of that drug, but that this would not be the case for heroin or cocaine among persons who used opioids or stimulants, respectively.

2.0. Methods

2.1. participants.

The sample was recruited online between July and November 2017. Participants (N=506) were registered as “workers” on the Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) platform ( Paolacci et al., 2010 ; Bartneck et al., 2015 ), which is an online forum where workers can anonymously complete tasks (such as surveys) assigned by “requestors” for a wage. Workers receive requestor approval ratings based on the quality of their work and completion time, which serves as an index of credibility and reliability ( Peer et al., 2014 ). To take the present survey, workers had to have an average requestor approval rating of 90% (as a quality control measure) and be located in the US. A short screening survey was given to ensure that participants were at least 18 years old, and it included other demographic questions, such as sex and race, to distract from the subject of the survey. The screening survey also limited the number of persons per category of primary substance used (including no use) using quotas, with a goal of obtaining at least 60 people in each primary substance category. A total of 2,672 persons attempted the screening survey, and 545 persons completed the primary survey. Those who were not eligible to continue on to the primary survey received $0.10 for completing the screening survey. After providing consent by agreeing to participate in the survey, those who answered questions in the primary survey received a bonus of two dollars, for a total of $2.10. The following quality control questions were included: 1) “Have you taken this survey before?” and 2) “Is there any reason for which we should not use your responses? For instance, you weren’t paying attention, you did not answer honestly, you had major computer issues, etc.” Those who answered “yes” to either of these questions were not included. The survey was hosted on Qualtrics (Provo, UT). The Johns Hopkins University Institutional Review Board approved the use of AMT for this survey research.

2.2. Measures

Demographic and drug use characteristics:.

Primary survey questions included demographic information such as education level, employment status, and income, as well as characteristics related to religious and political affiliations and whether the participant or someone close to them had ever experienced legal consequences related to substance use ( Table 1 ). Participants were asked whether they identified with a particular religion and to choose which major political party they identified with most among a list of the most common options; the options “none” and “other” were also provided. Additionally, participants were provided a list of substances and asked which they had used in the past year (including a write-in “other” option); for each substance they reported using, they were then asked to characterize use based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) SUD criteria ( American Psychiatric Association, 2013 ). Answering “yes” to two or more symptoms was operationalized as meeting criteria for a SUD for that substance. Participants who indicated using more than one substance in the past year were asked to identify which substance they would consider their primary substance; this was the basis upon which they were categorized for the remainder of the survey analyses.

Participant demographic data (N=506) 1

Decriminalization and Legalization Questions:

Participants were provided with definitions of legalization and decriminalization, and were then asked to rate their level of agreement with statements about legalization and decriminalization of heroin, cocaine, medical marijuana, and recreational marijuana on an 11-point scale with 0 representing “strongly disagree,” and 10 representing “strongly agree.” Some statements were worded in support of legalization/decriminalization of the substance while others were worded against legalization/decriminalization, to ensure participants were maintaining attention. Responses to the latter were reverse coded for consistency in reporting.

2.3. Statistical analyses

Participants were categorized into groups based on their self-reported primary substance used in the past year, with heroin and prescription painkiller misuse (taking pills other than how they were prescribed) collapsed into the “opioids” group; cocaine, methamphetamines, prescription stimulant misuse, or other stimulant use collapsed into the “stimulants” group; marijuana products, including synthetics, making up the “marijuana” group; any alcohol use included in the “alcohol” group; and no substance use in the “none” group. The degree to which demographic characteristics were associated with ratings for decriminalization/legalization was also assessed. Some demographic characteristics with multiple subgroups were dichotomized given limited numbers in some subgroups, including marital status (never married vs. ever married), race (minority vs. Caucasian), employment status (employed full time vs. other), education level (associates degree vs. less education), household income (less than or equal to $45,000 vs. more than $45,000) and political affiliation (Democrat vs. other).

Opinions on drug legalization and decriminalization as a function of primary substance used served as the primary analyses, while all others were secondary analyses. Categorical data, including demographics and SUD categorization were analyzed with chi-square analyses. Continuous data, such as age and drug legalization/decriminalization ratings, were analyzed with ANOVA or ANCOVA as appropriate. ANCOVAs controlled for those demographic variables that were significantly different among groups and showed a significant relationship with the outcome measure (see Table 2 ). Between-group planned comparisons of drug legalization/decriminalization ratings were compared between the primary substance categories, and then as a function of the group for whom the rating was deemed most relevant (e.g., ratings for heroin among persons who primarily used opioids, for cocaine among persons who primarily used stimulants, and for medical/recreational marijuana among persons who primarily used marijuana). Analyses used Type III sums of squares and planned comparisons among the primary substance use groups, and Pearson’s correlations to evaluate the relationship between legalization/decriminalization ratings. The primary outcome variables (legalization and decriminalization ratings) were not normally distributed. For the analyses in which we needed to control for certain demographic variables, ANCOVA were used as the main analyses, based on support for analyzing Likert data with parametric statistics ( Lubke and Muthén, 2004 ; De Winter and Dodou, 2010 ). The analyses by primary substance were significant when analyzed with Kruskal-Wallis tests, indicating that parametric and nonparametric statistics are approximately equivalent for these data. There were minor exceptions among the secondary analyses, but not the primary analyses. All analyses were performed in SPSS version 24.0. Statistical tests were considered significant at the p < 0.05 level.

Level of agreement with statements as a function of primary substance used 1

3.0. Results

3.1. participant characteristics.

A total of 506 participants completed the survey ( Table 1 ). Over the time of enrollment, the screening process targeted participants to ensure there were at least 60 subjects for each primary substance category. The final population had a mean age of 33.6 years old and was 53.0% male, 45.5% single (never married), and 25.9% racial minority (i.e., not Caucasian). Sixty-two percent of participants were employed full-time, 59.1% had at least an Associate’s degree, and 50.4% had a yearly household income of $45,000 or less. Among the total population, 36.4% of persons had experienced a legal consequence related to substance use among themselves or someone close to them. This was significantly more common among persons who used opioids (35.9%), stimulants (39.3%), marijuana (43.0%), or alcohol (36.4%), compared to those without substance use (19.5%). Participants were located in 43 states and the District of Columbia. For those persons who self-reported a primary substance used in the past year (N=429; 84.8%), a substantial proportion within each substance category reported symptoms meeting criteria for a SUD, including OUD (33/78; 42.3% of persons with opioid misuse), stimulant use disorder (25/61; 41.0%), marijuana use disorder (35/172; 20.3%), and AUD (39/118; 33.1%).

3.2. Preference for drug legalization and decriminalization of specific drug categories ( Table 2 )

3.2.1. heroin.

Overall, participants were not in favor of legalizing heroin (mean 3.8/10 for the total sample). However, persons whose primary substance was an opioid tended to have higher ratings (reflecting more positive attitudes) towards legalizing heroin (4.6/10) than persons who were classified as having primarily stimulant (3.3/10) or alcohol (3.4/10) use, as well as persons with no past-year substance use (3.4/10). The ratings of those with primary opioid misuse were similar to the ratings of persons with primary marijuana misuse with respect to attitudes towards heroin legalization (4.2/10). Ratings among all groups for decriminalization of heroin were even lower (total mean 2.9/10) indicating general lack of support. Persons who primarily misused opioids rated heroin decriminalization at 3.1 on average, which was not significantly different from other groups.

3.2.2. Cocaine

Similarly, the total sample of 506 persons was not in favor of cocaine legalization (3.8/10) or decriminalization (3.3/10). Persons with stimulant misuse rated cocaine legalization (4.2/10) and decriminalization (3.5/10) in a comparably low manner. Those who primarily used marijuana rated their agreement with cocaine decriminalization significantly higher (4.4/10), compared to those with primary alcohol use (2.8/10) and those with no use (2.8/10).

3.2.3. Marijuana

The total group of 506 participants was generally more in favor of the legalization and decriminalization of both medical (means for legalization = 7.2/10 and for decriminalization = 8.3/10) and recreational marijuana (legalization = 7.2/10 and decriminalization = 7.4/10), compared to legalization or decriminalization of heroin and cocaine. When examining the specific substance use groups, persons without any past-year substance use had lower ratings regarding legalization and decriminalization of marijuana, compared to other primary substance use groups. Conversely, persons with primary marijuana use had higher ratings for marijuana legalization (medical and recreational both = 8.2/10) and decriminalization (medical = 9.2/10 and recreational = 8.4/10).

3.3. Ratings as a function of primary substance used

This study hypothesized that respondents who identified a particular substance as their primary substance of use over the past year might be more inclined to see that substance legalized and/or decriminalized (particularly for marijuana). Results demonstrated that participants categorized as having primary opioid or stimulant misuse rated legalization and decriminalization of heroin and cocaine, respectively, at significantly lower values (indicating less endorsement) when compared to how those with primary marijuana use rated legalization and decriminalization of both medical and recreational marijuana (see corresponding cells of Table 2 ).

3.4. Religious characteristics

Whether persons identified with a particular religion or not proved to be an important variable among demographic characteristics, as well as legalization/decriminalization ratings (with religion serving as a covariate for those analyses). Thirty percent of participants identified with a religion. A significantly lower proportion of persons who used marijuana (21.5%) identified with a religion, compared to those who primarily used alcohol (37.3%), stimulants (36.1%), or no substances (37.7%). Similarly, those who identified with a religion were significantly less likely to report primary marijuana use (23.7%) than those who did not (38.6%). However, those persons who identified with a religion and used substances were significantly more likely to endorse 2 or more criteria on the DSM-5 SUD checklist (37.8%) than those who used substances but did not identify with a particular religion (27.8%).

There were statistically significant, though weak, negative correlations between identifying with a religion, and all drug legalization/decriminalization ratings (see Supplemental Table 1 ). Participants with a self-reported religious affiliation had significantly lower mean legalization/decriminalization ratings compared to those without any religious affiliation ( Figure 1a ).

Mean drug legalization/decriminalization ratings as a function of (a) religious or (b) political affiliation 1

1 Scales rated from 0–10, with 0 being strongly disagree and 10 being strongly agree. Unadjusted mean differences between groups were assessed with one-way ANOVA, with Tukey’s post hoc comparisons among political groups. Asterisks indicate p < 0.05 (b). Error bars indicate standard error of the mean (SEM). Asterisks indicate p < 0.05 when comparing persons who identify as republicans to those who identify as Democrats or have no political affiliation. Abbreviations: L- legalization, D- decriminalization, MMJ- medical marijuana, RMJ- recreational marijuana

3.5. Political characteristics

Political party affiliation (or the lack thereof) was also a significant factor among the demographic makeup of this population, their substance use, and opinions on drug legalization/decriminalization (making it a covariate for these analyses). The majority of persons surveyed (88.7%) were registered to vote. Fifty-one percent of participants identified with the Democratic Party, and the proportion of persons who used marijuana and identified as Democrats (60.5%) was significantly higher than those who primarily used alcohol (44.1%) or no substances (42.9%). Those who identified as Democrats were significantly more likely to use marijuana (40%) compared to non-Democrats (27.6%). Among those persons whose primary substance was alcohol, Democrats were significantly less likely to have an alcohol use disorder (12.7%) compared to non-Democrats (19.1%). Persons who identified as Republicans had significantly lower legalization/decriminalization ratings for each substance compared to those who identified as Democrats and those without any political affiliation (see Figure 1b ).

3.6. Ratings as a function of having a DSM-5 SUD vs. no SUD within primary drug categories

It is also possible that people with a more severe pattern of use (i.e., a SUD) would be more supportive of legalizing and/or decriminalizing the substance they use. However, there were no differences in ratings for legalization and decriminalization for any substance when comparing persons who use a substance but did not fulfill the DSM-5 SUD criteria, with those within that substance category who did meet the DSM-5 SUD criteria (data not shown).

3.7. Correlation of medical marijuana ratings to ratings of other substances

The use of medical marijuana is becoming more acceptable across the US, and it is possible that people who support the legalization/decriminalization of medical marijuana may also be open to supporting the legalization/decriminalization of other substances. We found a significant, though at times weak, positive correlation between how much participants agreed that medical marijuana should be decriminalized with ratings on heroin decriminalization (r=0.13, p=0.003), cocaine decriminalization (r= 0.15, p=0.001), recreational marijuana legalization (r=0.37, p=0.000) and recreational marijuana decriminalization (r=0.39, p=0.000). There was a significant, positive correlation between how participants rated medical marijuana legalization, and decriminalization of cocaine (r=0.09, p=0.038), legalization of recreational marijuana (r=0.43, p=0.000) and decriminalization of recreational marijuana (r=0.28, p=0.000).

4.0. Discussion

The current study provides new insights into opinions regarding the legalization and decriminalization of heroin, cocaine and marijuana. This study is unique in examining attitudes as a function of past year drug use, and hypothesized that persons who used substances would have differing drug legalization/decriminalization ratings for their self-reported primary substance, especially when comparing persons who primarily used marijuana to those who primarily used opioids and stimulants. Our hypothesis was supported by these findings, as persons who primarily used marijuana rated both the legalization and decriminalization of this drug favorably, but persons who primarily used opioids and simulants rated their support for both the legalization and decriminalization of heroin and cocaine relatively low, respectively. We found that overall most respondents were in favor of the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana (both medical and recreational), but not heroin and cocaine. These findings are consistent with the limited data that is currently known about opinions on marijuana legalization and decriminalization ( Lopez, 2016 ; Carliner et al., 2017 ; Geiger, 2018 ) as well as, heroin and cocaine ( Trevino and Richard, 2002 ; Geiger, 2018 ), though this is the first hypothesis-driven study of its kind since recent changes in marijuana laws have been made. Of note, while the concepts of legalization and decriminalization are fundamentally different, and were asked about separately in our survey, we found that they tended to track together (i.e. for each drug the mean ratings were either low, or below five, as in the case of heroin and cocaine, or above 5, as in the case of both recreational and medical marijuana). Thus, we will discuss the attitudes about both together.

These findings are particularly important because persons who misuse legal or illicit substances often have had interactions with the legal system, which may influence their attitudes and beliefs. Over a third of our participants had experienced legal consequences related to substance use themselves or through someone close to them. Data from the 2002–2008 NSDUH survey provides corroborating evidence of this relationship between drug use and legal consequences by showing that among those who had past year illicit drug dependence or abuse, 18% and 36% had been arrested once or more than once that year, respectively. Within the subsample of NSDUH respondents reporting past year alcohol dependence or abuse, these values increased to 38% and 52%, respectively ( Lattimore et al., 2014 ). The estimated prevalence of SUDs among incarcerated persons, while largely varied across studies, is substantial within both female (30–60%) and male (10–48%) prisoners ( Gerstein and Harwood, 1990 ; Mason et al., 1997 ; Lo and Stephens, 2000 ; Fazel et al., 2006 ). The high prevalence and comorbidity with SUDs indicates that legal issues are a significant factor in the current climate of substance use in the US.

The majority of our participants were not in favor of legalizing nor decriminalizing heroin and cocaine, even if they or someone they knew had suffered legal consequences related to substance use, or if they themselves met criteria for a SUD. These findings suggest that this population would not support policy changes related to heroin and cocaine legalization/decriminalization, which may reflect their own experiences, making them more cautious about increasing availability of these drugs. This sample was generally supportive of legalization and decriminalization of both medical and recreational marijuana. However, persons without any substance use in the last 12 months had significantly lower ratings than other groups, and were mainly neutral about marijuana legalization/decriminalization. The exception was that persons with no primary substance use had a higher rating on decriminalization of medical marijuana (mean 7.1/10) compared with their other ratings, perhaps because this was the most conservative marijuana option given. Interestingly, there was a positive relationship between agreement with decriminalizing medical marijuana, and decriminalizing heroin, cocaine, and recreational marijuana among our total population, suggesting an openness to minimizing criminal consequences associated with medical marijuana tracked with openness to the same for other drugs.

Understanding attitudes and associated characteristics towards drug legalization and decriminalization is important, especially in the currently changing social landscape, as several states in the US have passed laws legalizing and/or decriminalizing marijuana. For example, a study involving persons who voted on the initiative to legalize marijuana in Washington state reported that once marijuana stores began to open, persons who previously voted against the initiative were more likely to change their vote, if given the chance, compared to those who had voted in support of it ( Subbaraman and Kerr, 2016 ). Given the current changing environment, it is timely to determine whether persons continue to support legalization/decriminalization of marijuana and, more broadly, whether they would support legalization/decriminalization of other illicit drugs. Additionally, with other countries conducting research on heroin as a treatment for OUD ( Ayanga et al., 2016 ), it is important to consider how this may be perceived in the US and whether attitudes vary as a function of demographic and/or ideological beliefs.

There are several limitations to this work. The use of an online survey through AMT involves some selection bias, and resulted in a population which, while diverse, is not completely representative of the US population as a whole though it is demographically consistent with other studies involving AMT workers ( Chandler and Shapiro, 2016 ). Additional studies conducted within a representative sample of the US population would be helpful to determine the impact of demographic characteristics, as well as legal status of marijuana in the state of residence, on perceptions of drug decriminalization/legalization. The fact that self-reported substance use was not verified, and was from an anonymous population, is another limitation, in addition to the fact that all persons who used opioids or stimulants were grouped together, due to small numbers, instead of being able to assess those who used heroin and cocaine, specifically. We were also unable to look at how the use of multiple substances (especially those with primary use of alcohol, a legal substance, in addition to illegal substances) affected attitudes toward drug legalization/decriminalization.

This study appears to be the first to systematically study opinions of persons from across the US who use substances, and those who do not, about the legalization and decriminalization of multiple substances, and results have relevance for current and future policies. Legalization/decriminalization of marijuana was supported, but not in the case of other drugs, despite changes in apparent attitudes in other countries. As more information is learned about potential health benefits of certain substances that may drive policy changes in favor of their legalization/decriminalization, it is critical that persons who are directly affected by any policy changes (i.e. those who use substances) be included in these discussions to provide their unique perspectives. Studies among persons in SUD treatment, or those with varying SUD severity, are also warranted, as they may prove even more insightful to inform policies on legalization/decriminalization and the use of currently illicit drugs as treatment for SUDs. It is also important to monitor and track the evolution in changes in attitudes and beliefs over time. These nuances may impact public health messaging and the ability to target certain groups.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental table, conflict of interest and source of funding:.

This work was supported by internal funding from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. No conflicts declared.

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Should Illegal Drugs Be Legalized?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated in its Jan. 6, 1995 paper titled “Against Drug Prohibition”:

“The best evidence of prohibition’s failure is the government’s current war on drugs. This war, instead of employing a strategy of prevention, research, education and social programs designed to address problems such as permanent poverty, long term unemployment and deteriorating living conditions in our inner cities, has employed a strategy of law enforcement. While this military approach continues to devour billions of tax dollars and sends tens of thousands of people to prison, illegal drug trafficking thrives, violence escalates and drug abuse continues to debilitate lives… Those who benefit the most from prohibition are organized crime barons, who derive an estimated $10 to $50 billion a year from the illegal drug trade. Indeed, the criminal drug laws protect drug traffickers from taxation, regulation and quality control… In the same way that alcohol prohibition fueled violent gangsterism in the 1920s, today’s drug prohibition has spawned a culture of drive-by shootings and other gun-related crimes… The recent steep climb in our incarceration rate has made the U.S. the world’s leading jailer… Nonviolent drug offenders make up 58 percent of the federal prison population, a population that is extremely costly to maintain… Some people, hearing the words ‘drug legalization,’ imagine pushers on street corners passing out cocaine to anyone — even children. But that is what exists today under prohibition… In the long run, ending prohibition could foster the redirection of public resources toward social development, legitimate economic opportunities and effective treatment, thus enhancing the safety, health and well-being of the entire society.” May 25, 2005

Benson Roe, MD, Professor and Chief Emeritus at the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, wrote in his article (accessed on Nov. 18, 2005) titled “Why We Should Legalize Drugs,” posted on the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy’s website :

“[N]owhere can be found reliable, objective scientific evidence that [illicit drugs] are any more harmful than other substances and activities that are legal. In view of the enormous expense, the carnage and the obvious futility of the ‘drug war,’ resulting in massive criminalization of society, it is high time to examine the supposed justification for keeping certain substances illegal. Those who initiated those prohibitions and those who now so vigorously seek to enforce them have not made their objectives clear. Are they to protect us from evil, from addiction, or from poison?… The concept of evil is derived from subjective values and is difficult to define. Just why certain (illegal) substances are singularly more evil than legal substances like alcohol has not been explained… Addiction is also a relative and ubiquitous phenomenon… Some people are more susceptible to addiction than others and some ‘needs’ are more addictive than others. Probably the most addictive substance in our civilization is tobacco – yet no one has suggested making it illegal… And ‘poison’ is also a misleading shibboleth. The widespread propaganda that illegal drugs are ‘deadly poisons’ is a hoax. There is little or no medical evidence of long term ill effects from sustained, moderate consumption of uncontaminated marijuana, cocaine or heroin. If these substances – most of them have been consumed in large quantities for centuries – were responsible for any chronic, progressive or disabling diseases, they certainly would have shown up in clinical practice and/or on the autopsy table. But they simply have not!” Nov. 18, 2005

Joseph D. McNamara, PhD, former chief police in Kansas City, MO and San Jose, CA, stated during a symposium organized by the National Review for its July 1, 1996 cover story titled “Abolish the Drug Laws”:

“About $500 worth of heroin or cocaine in a source country will bring in as much as $100,000 on the streets of an American city. All the cops, armies, prisons, and executions in the world cannot impede a market with that kind of tax-free profit margin. It is the illegality that permits the obscene markup, enriching drug traffickers, distributors, dealers, crooked cops, lawyers, judges, politicians, bankers, businessmen… Sadly, the police have been pushed into a war they did not start and cannot win. It was not the police who lobbied in 1914 for passage of the Harrison Act, which first criminalized drugs… If drugs had been outlawed because the police had complained that drug use caused crime and disorder, the policy would have been more acceptable to the public and won more compliance. And the conviction that the use of certain drugs is immoral chills the ability to scrutinize rationally and to debate the effects of the drug war… To enforce drug laws the police have to resort to undercover work, which is dangerous to them and also to innocent bystanders. Drug enforcement often involves questionable ethical behavior by the police, such as… letting a guilty person go free because he enticed someone else into violating the law… Police scandals are an untallied cost of the drug war. The FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and even the Coast Guard have had to admit to corruption. The gravity of the police crimes is as disturbing as the volume… The drug war is as lethal as it is corrupting. And the police and drug criminals are not the only casualties.” July 1, 1996

The Cato Institute, a Libertarian think-tank, makes the following policy recommendations to the 108th Congress in its Dec. 2004 “Cato Handbook for Congress”:

“There are a number of reasons why Congress should end the federal government’s war on drugs. First and foremost, the federal drug laws are constitutionally dubious… Congress never asked the American people for additional constitutional powers to declare a war on drug consumers. That usurpation of power is something that few politicians or their court intellectuals wish to discuss… [D]rug prohibition is a classic example of throwing money at a problem. The federal government spends some $19 billion to enforce the drug laws every year—all to no avail. For years drug war bureaucrats have been tailoring their budget requests to the latest news reports. When drug use goes up, taxpayers are told the government needs more money so that it can redouble its efforts against a rising drug scourge. When drug use goes down, taxpayers are told that it would be a big mistake to curtail spending just when progress is being made… One of the broader lessons that [recent presidents and congresses] should have learned is this: prohibition laws should be judged according to their real-world effects, not their promised benefits… Congress should repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration, and let the states set their own policies with regard to currently illegal drugs… Repeal of prohibition would take the astronomical profits out of the drug business and destroy the drug kingpins who terrorize parts of our cities… Not only would there be less crime; reform would also free federal agents to concentrate on terrorism and espionage and free local police agents to concentrate on robbery, burglary, and violent crime.” Dec. 2004

Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist, wrote in an Aug. 3, 2002 article for Townhall.com titled “In Drug War, Honesty is Best Policy,” that:

“There isn’t space here to outline all the arguments for and against legalization of some drugs, but it’s clear that: drugs are easy to get; the drug subculture thrives in part because it is forbidden and therefore attractive; dollar for dollar, the billions we funnel into this ‘war’ would be better spent on education, prevention and treatment. Would it not be better to control those substances, tax them, limit their availability to minors as we try to do with alcohol, rather than criminalize a huge segment of the population that probably includes many of our neighbors and even our own children? The genie in the bottle is truth, and the truth is that all drugs are not awful, evil or equally harmful… Truth is also this: Drug abuse is different from drug use, just as alcoholism is different from the weekend cocktail party. Rather than fight the abuse war from a moral, shame-on-you posture, which doesn’t work with any age, we might try a medical model that educates with facts and urges human wisdom… Think of it as an investment in credibility so that potential users tune in to the discussion on consequences that needs to follow.” Aug. 3, 2002

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in the summary of its May 2003 booklet titled “Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization,” stated:

“We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts.The Legalization Lobby claims that the fight against drugs cannot be won. However, overall drug use is down by more than a third in the last twenty years, while cocaine use has dropped by an astounding 70 percent… The Legalization Lobby claims that the United States has wasted billions of dollars in its anti-drug efforts. But for those kids saved from drug addiction, this is hardly wasted dollars. Moreover, our fight against drug abuse and addiction is an ongoing struggle that should be treated like any other social problem. Would we give up on education or poverty simply because we haven’t eliminated all problems? Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction—whether in taxpayer dollars or in pain and suffering—government spending on drug control is minimal. Legalization of drugs will lead to increased use and increased levels of addiction. Legalization has been tried before, and failed miserably… Alaska’s experiment with Legalization in the 1970s led to the state’s teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other youths nationally. This led Alaska’s residents to vote to re-criminalize marijuana in 1990… Most non-violent drug users get treatment, not jail time. The Legalization Lobby claims that America’s prisons are filling up with users. Truth is, only about 5 percent of inmates in federal prison are there because of simple possession. Most drug criminals are in jail—even on possession charges—because they have plea-bargained down from major trafficking offences or more violent drug crimes.” May 2003

John Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), wrote in a July 19, 2002 op-ed article titled “Don’t Legalize Drugs” in the Wall Street Journal that:

“The charge that ‘nothing works’ in the fight against illegal drugs has led some people to grasp at an apparent solution: legalize drugs… Better, the argument goes, for the government to control the trade in narcotics. That should drive down the prices (heroin would be ‘no more expensive than lettuce,’ argues one proponent), eliminate violence, provide tax revenue, reduce prison crowding, and foster supervised injection facilities. Sounds good. But is it realistic?… Legalizers overstate the social costs of prohibition, just as they understate the social costs of legalization… Legalization, by removing penalties and reducing price, would increase drug demand. Make something easier and cheaper to obtain, and you increase the number of people who will try it… Legalizers like to argue that government-supervised production and distribution of addictive drugs will eliminate the dangers attributed to drug prohibition. But when analyzing this ‘harm reduction’ argument, consider the abuse of the opiate OxyContin, which has resulted in numerous deaths, physicians facing criminal charges, and addicts attacking pharmacies. OxyContin is a legally prescribed substance, with appropriate medical uses—that is, it satisfies those conditions legalizers envision for cocaine and heroin. The point is clear: The laws are not the problem… Legalization is a dangerous mirage. To address a crime problem, we are asked to accept a public health crisis. Yet if we were to surrender, we would surely face both problems—intensified.” July 19, 2002

The Drug Free America Foundation stated in its “Myths About the Drug War” posted on its website (accessed Nov. 18, 2005):

“Under a legalization scenario, a black market for drugs would still exist. If drugs were legal for those over 18 or 21, there would be a market for everyone under that age. People under the age of 21 consume the majority of illegal drugs, and so an illegal market and organized crime to supply it would remain—along with the organized crime that profits from it. After Prohibition ended, did the organized crime in our country go down? No. It continues today in a variety of other criminal enterprises. Legalization would not put the cartels out of business; cartels would simply look to other illegal endeavors… While ‘government drugs’ could conceivably be priced low enough to eliminate competition, perhaps by having taxpayers subsidize them to discourage a black market, the combination of low price and wide availability would result in greater consumption, and consequently increased addiction. Increased consumption and addiction lead to drug-related crime. This government regulation argument ignores the dangerously addictive nature of drugs. And finally, under a legalization scenario, a black market for drugs would still exist. If drugs were legal for those over 18 or 21, there would be a market for everyone under that age –a faction of the population that can be targeted by those looking to profit from the sale of drugs.” Nov. 18, 2005

Charles D. Mabry, MD, Assistant Professor at the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas, wrote in an Oct. 2001 article titled “Physicians and the War on Drugs: The Case Against Legalization,” published in the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons that:

“Does making addictive drugs illegal work? Cocaine and potent narcotics were freely sold in America until the first two decades of the 20th century, and the number of patients addicted dropped sharply once availability was curtailed… More recently, several European countries have experimented with various attempts to legalize or decriminalize some illegal drugs. These experiments have resulted in a rise in the number of drug-addicted patients and a corresponding increase in the crime rate… The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has stated the situation concerning illicit drugs in this country most eloquently: ‘Drugs are not a threat to American society because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are a threat to American society.’… There is another stark reality: In some cases, the only thing that forces someone who is addicted to drugs and spiraling out of control into therapy is the threat (or reality) of incarceration. Do away with laws prohibiting sale of these drugs, and you do away with the only hope of help for so many people who are addicted but just can’t stop themselves.” Oct. 2001

Ann Coulter, JD, author, wrote in her Oct. 3, 2000 article “Don’t Do Drug Legalization” for Townhall.com that:

“The most superficially appealing argument for drug legalization is that people should be allowed to do what they want with their own bodies, even if it ruins their lives. Except that’s not true. Back on Earth, see, we live in a country that will not allow people to live with their own stupid decisions. Ann has to pay for their stupid decisions. ‘We’ have to ‘invest’ in ‘our’ future by supporting people who freely choose to inject drugs in their own bodies and then become incapable of holding jobs, obtaining housing and taking care of their children. So it’s not really quite accurate to say drugs hurt no one but the user, at least until we’ve repealed the welfare state… Drugs enslave people. So do cigarettes and alcohol, the drug legalizers say… Assume alcohol and cigarettes induce dependency, ruin lives, cause disease, depression, countless traffic injuries and fatalities, and increase the incidence of homicide and suicide. This is supposed to be an argument for legalizing another drug like them?” Oct. 3, 2000

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Why all drugs should be legal. (Yes, even heroin.)

Prohibition has huge costs

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We've come a long way since Reefer Madness . Over the past two decades, 16 states have de-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll , 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization.

Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and "hard drugs."

That's understandable: Different drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances.

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But if the goal is to minimize harm — to people here and abroad — the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana.

In fact, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from skiing or snowboarding accidents ; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools ; more than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals ; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents ; and at least 38,000 from excessive alcohol use .

Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances.

The same condition holds for hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use.

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That means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few abusive users would be better off.

And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of how harmful drugs might be.

First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous unwanted side effects.

Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can't resolve disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead. Black markets generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses.

What's more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn't exist in a legal market. Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean needles (because this might "send the wrong message"). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV, Hepatitis C, and other blood-borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.

Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no-knock warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest rates for blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we can't collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).

The bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can't ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs themselves. In a society that legalizes drugs, users face only the negatives of use. Under prohibition, they also risk arrest, fines, loss of professional licenses, and more. So prohibition unambiguously harms those who use despite prohibition.

It's also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit.

On that question, available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large-scale production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption.

To the extent prohibition does reduce use drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than for marijuana. That's because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana; for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the black market while having minimal impact on use.

But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.

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The Legalization of Drugs: For & Against

Douglas Husak and Peter de Marneffe, The Legalization of Drugs: For & Against , Cambridge University Press, 2005, 204pp., $18.99 (pbk), ISBN 0521546869.

Reviewed by William Hawk, James Madison University

In the United States the production, distribution and use of marijuana, heroin, and cocaine are crimes subjecting the offender to imprisonment. The Legalization of Drugs , appearing in the series "For and Against" edited by R. G. Frey for Cambridge University Press, raises the seldom-asked philosophical question of the justification, if any, of imprisoning persons for drug offenses.

Douglas Husak questions the justification for punishing persons who use drugs such as marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. He develops a convincing argument that imprisonment is never morally justified for drug use. Put simply, incarceration is such a harsh penalty that drug use, generally harmless to others and less harmful to the user than commonly supposed, fails to justify it. Any legal scheme that punishes drug users to achieve another worthy goal, such as creating a disincentive to future drug users, violates principles of justice.

Peter de Marneffe contends that under some circumstances society is morally justified in punishing persons who produce and distribute heroin. He argues a theoretical point that anticipated rises in drug abuse and consequent effects on young people may justify keeping heroin production and distribution illegal. According to de Marneffe's analysis, however, harsh prison penalties currently imposed on drug offenders are unjustified.

The points of discord between Husak's and de Marneffe's positions are serious but not as telling as is their implicit agreement. Current legal practices and policies which lead to lengthy incarceration of those who produce, distribute and use drugs such as marijuana, heroin, and cocaine are not, and cannot be, morally justified. Both arguments, against imprisoning drug users and for keeping heroin production illegal, merit a broad and careful reading.

The United States has erected an enormous legal structure involving prosecution and incarceration designed to prohibit a highly pleasurable, sometimes medically indicated and personally satisfying activity, namely using marijuana, heroin, and cocaine. At the same time, other pleasure-producing drugs, such as tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine, though legally regulated for the purposes of consumer safety and under-age consumption, can be purchased over the counter. As a result, while the health and safety risks of cigarettes may be greater than those proven to accompany marijuana, one can buy cigarettes from a vending machine and but go to prison for smoking marijuana. A rational legal system, according to Husak, demands a convincing, but as yet not forthcoming, explanation of why one pleasurable drug subjects users to the risk of imprisonment while the other is accommodated in restaurants.

Drug prohibitionists must face the problem that any "health risk" argument used to distinguish illicit drugs and subject offenders to prison sentences runs up against the known, yet tolerated, health risks of tobacco, as well as the additional health risks associated with incarceration. "Social costs" arguments targeting heroin or cocaine runs up against the known, yet tolerated, social costs of alcohol, as well as the additional social costs of incarceration. Even if one were to accept that illicit drugs were more harmful or exacted greater social costs than tobacco and alcohol (and the empirical studies referred to in the text do not generally support this thesis), that difference proves insufficient to justify imprisoning producers, distributors or especially users of illicit drugs.

Decriminalizing Drug Use. Douglas Husak presents a very carefully argued case for decriminalizing drug use. He begins his philosophical argument by clarifying the concepts and issues involved. To advocate the legalization of drugs calls for a legal system in which the production and sale of drugs are not criminal offenses. (p. 3) Criminalization of drugs makes the use of certain drugs a criminal offense, i.e. one deserving punishment. To argue for drug decriminalization, as Husak does, is not necessarily to argue for legalization of drugs . Husak entertains, but cautiously rejects the notion of a system where production and sale of drugs is illegal while use is not a crime. De Marneffe advocates such a system.

Punishing persons by incarceration demands justification. Since the state's use of punishment is a severe tool and incarceration is by its nature "degrading, demoralizing and dangerous" (p. 29) we must be able to provide "a compelling reason … to justify the infliction of punishment… ." (p. 34) Husak finds no compelling reason for imprisoning drug users. After considering four standard justifications for punishing drug users Husak concludes that "the arguments for criminalization are not sufficiently persuasive to justify the infliction of punishment."

Reasons to Criminalize Drug Use . 1) Drug users, it is claimed, should be punished in order to protect the health and well being of citizens . No doubt states are justified in protecting the health and well being of citizens. But does putting drug users in prison contribute to this worthy goal? Certainly not for those imprisoned. For those who might be deterred from using drugs the question is whether the drugs from which they are deterred by the threat of imprisonment actually pose a health risk. For one, Husak quotes research showing that currently illicit drugs do not obviously pose a greater health threat than alcohol or tobacco. For another, he quotes a statistic showing that approximately four times as many persons die annually from using prescribed medicines than die from using illegal drugs. In addition, one-fourth of all pack-a-day smokers lose ten to fifteen years of their lives but no one would entertain the idea of incarcerating smokers to further their health interests or in order to prevent non-smokers from beginning. In sum, Husak accepts that drug use poses health risks but contends that the risks are not greater than others that are socially accepted. Even if they were greater, imprisonment does not reduce, but compounds the health risks for prisoners.

2) Punishing drug users protects children . Husak here responds to de Marneffe's essay which focuses on potential drug abuse and promotes the welfare of children as a justification for keeping drug production and sale illegal. Husak finds punishing adolescent users a peculiar way to protect them. To punish one drug-using adolescent in order to prevent a non-using adolescent from using drugs is ineffective and also violates justice. Punishing adult users so that youth do not begin using drugs and do not suffer from neglect -- which is de Marneffe's position -- is not likely to prevent adolescents from becoming drug users, and even if it did, one would have to show that the harm prevented to the youth justifies imprisoning adults. Husak contends that punishing adults or youth, far from protecting youth, puts them at greater risk.

3) Some, e.g. former New York City mayor Guiliani, argue that punishing drug use prevents crime . Husak, conceding a connection between drug use and crime, turns the argument upside-down, showing how punishment increases rather than decreases crime. For one, criminalization of drugs forces the drug industry to settle disputes extra-legally. Secondly, drug decriminalization would likely lower drug costs thereby reducing economic crimes. Thirdly, to those who contend that illicit drugs may increase violence and aggression Husak responds that: a) empirical evidence does not support marijuana or heroin as causes of violence and b) empirical evidence does support alcohol, which is decriminalized, as leading to violence. Husak concludes "if we propose to ban those drugs that are implicated in criminal behavior, no drug would be a better candidate for criminalization than alcohol." (p. 70) Finally, punishing drug users likely increases crime rates since those imprisoned for drug use are released with greater tendencies and skills for future criminal activity.

4) Drug use ought to be punished because using drugs is immoral . In addition to standard philosophical objections to legal moralism, Husak contends that there is no good reason to think that recreational drug use is immoral. Drug use violates no rights. Other recreationally used drugs such as alcohol, tobacco or caffeine are not immoral. The only accounts according to which drug use is immoral are religiously based and generally not shared in the citizenry. Husak argues that legal moralism fails, and with it the attempts to justify imprisoning drug users because of health and well-being, protecting children, or reducing crime. Husak concludes, "If I am correct, prohibitionists are more clearly guilty of immorality than their opponents. The wrongfulness of recreational drug use, if it exists at all, pales against the immorality of punishing drug users." (p. 82)

Reasons to Decriminalize Drug Use. Husak's positive case for decriminalizing drug use begins with acknowledgement that drug use is or may be highly pleasurable. In addition, some drugs aid relaxation, others increase energy and some promote spiritual enlightenment or literary and artistic creativity. The simple fun and euphoria attendant to drug use should count for permitting it.

The fact that criminalization of drug use proves to be counter-productive provides Husak a set of final substantial reasons for decriminalizing use. Criminalizing drugs proves counter-productive along several different lines: 1) criminalization is aimed and selectively enforced against minorities, 2) public health risks increase because drugs are dealt on the street, 3) foreign policy is negatively affected by corrupt governments being supported solely because they support anti-drug policies, 4) a frank and open discussion about drug policy is impossible in the United States, 5) civil liberties are eroded by drug enforcement, 6) some government corruption stems from drug payoffs and 7) criminalization costs tens of billions of dollars per year.

Douglas Husak provides the conceptual clarity needed to work one's way through the various debates surrounding drug use and the law. He establishes a high threshold that must be met in order to justify the state's incarcerating someone. Having laid this groundwork Husak demonstrates that purported justifications for drug criminalization fail and that good reasons for decriminalizing drug use prevail. For persons who worry about what drug decriminalization means for children, Husak counsels that there is more to fear from prosecution and conviction of youth for using drugs than there is to fear from the drugs themselves.

Against Legalizing Drug Production and Distribution. Peter de Marneffe offers an argument against drug legalization . The argument itself is simple. If drugs are legalized, there will be more drug abuse. If there is more drug abuse that is bad. Drug abuse is sufficiently bad to justify making drug production and distribution illegal. Therefore, drugs should not be legalized. The weight of this argument is carried by the claim that the badness of drug abuse is sufficient to justify making drug production and sale illegal.

De Marneffe centers his argument on heroin. Heroin, he contends, is highly pleasurable but sharply depresses motivation to achieve worthwhile goals and meet responsibilities. Accordingly, children in an environment where heroin is legal will be subjected to neglect by heroin using parents and, if they themselves use heroin, they will be harmed by diminished motivation for achievement for the remainder of their lives. It is this later harm to the ambition and motivation of young people that, according to de Marneffe, justifies criminalizing heroin production and sale. As he puts it:

… the risk of lost opportunities that some individuals would bear as the result of heroin legalization justifies the risks of criminal liability and other burdens that heroin prohibition imposes on other individuals. The legalization of heroin would create a social environment -- call it the legalization environment -- in which some children would be at a substantially higher risk of irresponsible heroin abuse by their parents and in which some adolescents would be at a substantially higher risk of self-destructive heroin abuse. (p. 124)

Are the liberties of individual adult drug producers, distributors and users sacrificed? Yes, but this may be justified by de Marneffe's "burdens principle." According to the burdens principle, "the government violates a person's moral rights in adopting a policy that limits her liberty if and only if in adopting this policy the government imposes a burden on her that is substantially worse than the worst burden anyone would bear in the absence of this policy." (p. 159) According to this, de Marneffe claims that burdens on drug vendors or users may be justified by the prevention of harms to a particular individual or individuals. As he puts it:

What I claim in favor of heroin prohibition is that the reasons of at least one person to prefer her situation in a prohibition environment outweigh everyone else's reasons to prefer his or her situation in a legalization environment, assuming that the penalties are gradual and proportionate and other relevant conditions are met. (p. 161)

According to this view, the objective interest of a single adolescent in not losing ambition, motivation and drive justifies the imposition of burdens on other youth and adults who would prefer using drugs. Although Johnny might choose heroin use, his objective interest is for future motivation and ambition that is not harmed by heroin use.

De Marneffe's "burdens principle" seems to hold the whole society hostage to the objective liberty interests of one individual. Were this principle applied to drug producers or distributors who faced imprisonment it seems that imprisonment could not be justified. I suspect a concern for consistency here gives de Marneffe reason to make drug production and distribution illegal but without attaching harsh prison sentences for offenders. He advocates an environment where drugs are not legal, in order to protect youth against both abuse and their own choices that may cause them to become unmotivated, but recognizes that prison sentences are unjustified as a way to support such a system.

In The Legalization of Drugs the reader gets two interesting arguments. Douglas Husak makes a compelling case against punishing drug users. His position amounts to drug decriminalization with skepticism toward making drug production and sale illegal. On the other side, Peter de Marneffe justifies making drug production and sale illegal based upon the diminishment of future interests of young people. De Marneffe introduces a "burdens principle" which is likely much too strong a commitment to individual interests than could ever be realized in a civil society. In both instances, the reader is treated to arguments that effectively undermine current drug policy. The book provides philosophical argumentation that should stimulate a societal conversation about the justifiability of current drug laws.

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Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana

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The pros and cons of legalizing marijuana are still being debated. Today, 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow for the medical use of marijuana. A growing number allow recreational use.

However, as a Schedule I controlled substance, marijuana is illegal under federal law. This Drug Enforcement Administration designation means that marijuana is considered to have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." It also limits medical studies into the potential benefits of cannabis .

This article explains the positions of those who want to legalize marijuana as well as the arguments of those who do not want to see marijuana legalized.

The Pros of Legalizing Marijuana

Americans overwhelmingly support the legalization of marijuana. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 88% of Americans support legalizing marijuana. Of those, 59% say it should be legal for medical and recreational use, and 30% say it should be legal for medical reasons only.

Several possible health benefits of medical marijuana have been proposed:

• Nausea : Marijuana is effective in relieving nausea and vomiting. Studies have shown that cannabis can decrease nausea caused by chemotherapy and almost eliminate vomiting.
• Spasticity : Marijuana can relieve pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis.
• Appetite : Marijuana can help treat appetite loss associated with conditions like  HIV/AIDS and certain types of cancers.
• Chronic pain : Marijuana can relieve certain types of chronic pain, including neuropathic pain, which is caused by nerve damage.

Arguments in favor of using medical marijuana include:

• It's safer : Marijuana is safer than some other medications prescribed to treat pain. For example, some people may use it instead of opioids for pain management. Opioids are highly addictive and are typically not recommended for long-term use in treating chronic pain.
• You can use it in many ways : You do not need to smoke cannabis for its benefits. Products such as topical pain relief treatments, edibles, and other non-smoking applications are now available.
• It's natural : People have used marijuana for centuries as a natural medicinal agent with good results.

Recreational Marijuana

Marijuana is legal for recreational use in 20 states and the District of Columbia. In 20 other states, marijuana has been decriminalized. This means there are no criminal penalties in these states for minor marijuana-related offenses like possession of small amounts or cultivation for personal use.

The Cons of Legalizing Marijuana

Those who oppose the legalization of marijuana point to the health risks of the drug, including:

• Memory issues : Frequent marijuana use may seriously affect your short-term memory.
• Cognition problems : Frequent use can impair your cognitive (thinking) abilities.
• Lung damage : Smoking anything, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, can damage your lung tissue. In addition, smoking marijuana could increase the risk of lung cancer .
• Abuse : Marijuana carries a risk of abuse and addiction.
• Accidents : Marijuana use impairs driving skills and increases the risk for car collisions.

The fact that the federal government groups it in the same category as drugs like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy is reason enough to keep it illegal, some say. As Schedule I drugs are defined by having no accepted value, legalization could give users the wrong impression about where research on the drug stands.

Scientific Evidence Remains Limited

In the past, clinical trials to determine if marijuana is effective in treating certain conditions have been restrictive and limited. However, as medical marijuana becomes more common throughout the world, researchers are doing more studies.

Expert reviews of current research continue to say more studies are needed. In addition, many hurdles involve controlling the quality and dosing of cannabis with what is legally available to researchers.

One review of research noted that the long-term effects of cannabis are still unknown. Without more research into dosage and adverse effects, scientific evidence of risks and therapeutic effects remains soft.

Researchers need to evaluate marijuana using the same standards as other medications to understand whether it is valuable for managing any conditions.

Until the federal government downgrades marijuana from a Schedule I drug, widespread clinical trials are unlikely to happen in the United States.

Medical marijuana is increasingly available in the U.S. It is often used to treat chronic pain, muscle spasms, nausea, and vomiting, and to increase appetite. However, it can affect thinking and memory, and increase the risk of accidents, plus smoking it may harm the lungs and lead to cancer.

More studies are needed to understand the benefits of medical marijuana. However, unless the federal government removes it as a Schedule I controlled substance, research, access, and legality will remain complicated.

National Conference of State Legislatures. State medical cannabis laws .

United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Drug scheduling .

Pew Research Center. Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use .

Badowski ME. A review of oral cannabinoids and medical marijuana for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: a focus on pharmacokinetic variability and pharmacodynamics . Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2017;80(3):441-449. doi:10.1007/s00280-017-3387-5

Filippini G, Lasserson TJ, Dwan K, et al. Cannabis and cannabinoids for people with multiple sclerosis . Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2019;2019(10):CD013444. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD013444

American Cancer Society. Marijuana and Cancer .

Hill KP. Medical marijuana for treatment of chronic pain and other medical and psychiatric problems: A clinical review . JAMA. 2015;313(24):2474-83. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.6199

Choo EK, Feldstein Ewing SW, Lovejoy TI. Opioids out, cannabis in: Negotiating the unknowns in patient care for chronic pain . JAMA . 2016;316(17):1763-1764. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.13677

Corroon J, Sexton M, Bradley R. Indications and administration practices amongst medical cannabis healthcare providers: a cross-sectional survey . BMC Fam Pract. 2019;20(1):174. doi:10.1186/s12875-019-1059-8

The Council of State Governments. State approaches to marijuana policy .

Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School. The Effects of Marijuana on your Memory .

Ghasemiesfe M, Barrow B, Leonard S, Keyhani S, Korenstein D. Association between marijuana use and risk of cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis . JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(11):e1916318. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.16318

Preuss U, Huestis M, Schneider M et al. Cannabis use and car crashes: A review . Front Psychiatry . 2021;12. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.643315

Deshpande A, Mailis-Gagnon A, Zoheiry N, Lakha SF. Efficacy and adverse effects of medical marijuana for chronic noncancer pain: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials . Can Fam Physician. 2015;61(8):e372-81.

Hill KP, Palastro MD, Johnson B, Ditre JW. Cannabis and pain: a clinical review .  Cannabis Cannabinoid Res . 2017;2(1):96-104. doi:10.1089/can.2017.0017

Maida V, Daeninck PJ. A user's guide to cannabinoid therapies in oncology . Curr Oncol. 2016;23(6):398-406. doi:10.3747/co.23.3487

Meier MH, Caspi A, Cerdá M, et al. Associations between cannabis use and physical health problems in early midlife: A longitudinal comparison of persistent cannabis vs tobacco users. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73(7):731-40. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.0637

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The Evidence—and Lack Thereof—About Cannabis

Research is still needed on cannabis’s risks and benefits. 

Lindsay Smith Rogers

Although the use and possession of cannabis is illegal under federal law, medicinal and recreational cannabis use has become increasingly widespread.

Thirty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical cannabis, while 23 states and D.C. have legalized recreational use. Cannabis legalization has benefits, such as removing the product from the illegal market so it can be taxed and regulated, but science is still trying to catch up as social norms evolve and different products become available. 

In this Q&A, adapted from the August 25 episode of Public Health On Call , Lindsay Smith Rogers talks with Johannes Thrul, PhD, MS , associate professor of Mental Health , about cannabis as medicine, potential risks involved with its use, and what research is showing about its safety and efficacy. 

Do you think medicinal cannabis paved the way for legalization of recreational use?

The momentum has been clear for a few years now. California was the first to legalize it for medical reasons [in 1996]. Washington and Colorado were the first states to legalize recreational use back in 2012. You see one state after another changing their laws, and over time, you see a change in social norms. It's clear from the national surveys that people are becoming more and more in favor of cannabis legalization. That started with medical use, and has now continued into recreational use.

But there is a murky differentiation between medical and recreational cannabis. I think a lot of people are using cannabis to self-medicate. It's not like a medication you get prescribed for a very narrow symptom or a specific disease. Anyone with a medical cannabis prescription, or who meets the age limit for recreational cannabis, can purchase it. Then what they use it for is really all over the place—maybe because it makes them feel good, or because it helps them deal with certain symptoms, diseases, and disorders.

Does cannabis have viable medicinal uses?

The evidence is mixed at this point. There hasn’t been a lot of funding going into testing cannabis in a rigorous way. There is more evidence for certain indications than for others, like CBD for seizures—one of the first indications that cannabis was approved for. And THC has been used effectively for things like nausea and appetite for people with cancer.

There are other indications where the evidence is a lot more mixed. For example, pain—one of the main reasons that people report for using cannabis. When we talk to patients, they say cannabis improved their quality of life. In the big studies that have been done so far, there are some indications from animal models that cannabis might help [with pain]. When we look at human studies, it's very much a mixed bag. 

And, when we say cannabis, in a way it's a misnomer because cannabis is so many things. We have different cannabinoids and different concentrations of different cannabinoids. The main cannabinoids that are being studied are THC and CBD, but there are dozens of other minor cannabinoids and terpenes in cannabis products, all of varying concentrations. And then you also have a lot of different routes of administration available. You can smoke, vape, take edibles, use tinctures and topicals. When you think about the explosion of all of the different combinations of different products and different routes of administration, it tells you how complicated it gets to study this in a rigorous way. You almost need a randomized trial for every single one of those and then for every single indication.

What do we know about the risks of marijuana use?  

Cannabis use disorder is a legitimate disorder in the DSM. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who develop a problematic use of cannabis. We know there are risks for mental health consequences. The evidence is probably the strongest that if you have a family history of psychosis or schizophrenia, using cannabis early in adolescence is not the best idea. We know cannabis can trigger psychotic symptoms and potentially longer lasting problems with psychosis and schizophrenia. 

It is hard to study, because you also don't know if people are medicating early negative symptoms of schizophrenia. They wouldn't necessarily have a diagnosis yet, but maybe cannabis helps them to deal with negative symptoms, and then they develop psychosis. There is also some evidence that there could be something going on with the impact of cannabis on the developing brain that could prime you to be at greater risk of using other substances later down the road, or finding the use of other substances more reinforcing. 

What benefits do you see to legalization?

When we look at the public health landscape and the effect of legislation, in this case legalization, one of the big benefits is taking cannabis out of the underground illegal market. Taking cannabis out of that particular space is a great idea. You're taking it out of the illegal market and giving it to legitimate businesses where there is going to be oversight and testing of products, so you know what you're getting. And these products undergo quality control and are labeled. Those labels so far are a bit variable, but at least we're getting there. If you're picking up cannabis at the street corner, you have no idea what's in it. 

And we know that drug laws in general have been used to criminalize communities of color and minorities. Legalizing cannabis [can help] reduce the overpolicing of these populations.

What big questions about cannabis would you most like to see answered?

We know there are certain, most-often-mentioned conditions that people are already using medical cannabis for: pain, insomnia, anxiety, and PTSD. We really need to improve the evidence base for those. I think clinical trials for different cannabis products for those conditions are warranted.

Another question is, now that the states are getting more tax revenue from cannabis sales, what are they doing with that money? If you look at tobacco legislation, for example, certain states have required that those funds get used for research on those particular issues. To me, that would be a very good use of the tax revenue that is now coming in. We know, for example, that there’s a lot more tax revenue now that Maryland has legalized recreational use. Maryland could really step up here and help provide some of that evidence.

Are there studies looking into the risks you mentioned?

Large national studies are done every year or every other year to collect data, so we already have a pretty good sense of the prevalence of cannabis use disorder. Obviously, we'll keep tracking that to see if those numbers increase, for example, in states that are legalizing. But, you wouldn't necessarily expect to see an uptick in cannabis use disorder a month after legalization. The evidence from states that have legalized it has not demonstrated that we might all of a sudden see an increase in psychosis or in cannabis use disorder. This happens slowly over time with a change in social norms and availability, and potentially also with a change in marketing. And, with increasing use of an addictive substance, you will see over time a potential increase in problematic use and then also an increase in use disorder.

If you're interested in seeing if cannabis is right for you, is this something you can talk to your doctor about?

I think your mileage may vary there with how much your doctor is comfortable and knows about it. It's still relatively fringe. That will very much depend on who you talk to. But I think as providers and professionals, everybody needs to learn more about this, because patients are going to ask no matter what.

Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA, is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast , an editor for Expert Insights , and the director of content strategy for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Most Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana for Medical, Recreational Use

Legalizing recreational marijuana viewed as good for local economies; mixed views of impact on drug use, community safety, table of contents.

• The impact of legalizing marijuana for recreational use
• Partisan differences on impact of recreational use of marijuana
• Demographic, partisan differences in views of marijuana legalization
• Views of marijuana legalization vary by age within both parties
• Views of the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana among racial and ethnic groups
• Wide age gap on views of impact of legalizing recreational marijuana
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand the public’s views about the legalization of marijuana in the United States. For this analysis, we surveyed 5,140 adults from Jan. 16 to Jan. 21, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for the report and its methodology .

As more states pass laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use , Americans continue to favor legalization of both medical and recreational use of the drug.

An overwhelming share of U.S. adults (88%) say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use.

Nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) say that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational purposes, while roughly a third (32%) say that marijuana should be legal for medical use only.

Just 11% of Americans say that the drug should not be legal at all.

Opinions about marijuana legalization have changed little over the past five years, according to the Pew Research Center survey, conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024, among 5,14o adults.

While a majority of Americans continue to say marijuana should be legal , there are varying views about the impacts of recreational legalization.

About half of Americans (52%) say that legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is good for local economies; just 17% think it is bad and 29% say it has no impact.

More adults also say legalizing marijuana for recreational use makes the criminal justice system more fair (42%) than less fair (18%); 38% say it has no impact.

However, Americans have mixed views on the impact of legalizing marijuana for recreational use on:

• Use of other drugs: About as many say it increases (29%) as say it decreases (27%) the use of other drugs, like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine (42% say it has no impact).
• Community safety: More Americans say legalizing recreational marijuana makes communities less safe (34%) than say it makes them safer (21%); 44% say it has no impact.

There are deep partisan divisions regarding the impact of marijuana legalization for recreational use.

Majorities of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say legalizing recreational marijuana is good for local economies (64% say this) and makes the criminal justice system fairer (58%).

Fewer Republicans and Republican leaners say legalization for recreational use has a positive effect on local economies (41%) and the criminal justice system (27%).

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite downsides from legalizing recreational marijuana:

• 42% of Republicans say it increases the use of other drugs, like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, compared with just 17% of Democrats.
• 48% of Republicans say it makes communities less safe, more than double the share of Democrats (21%) who say this.

Sizable age and partisan differences persist on the issue of marijuana legalization though small shares of adults across demographic groups are completely opposed to it.

Older adults are far less likely than younger adults to favor marijuana legalization.

This is particularly the case among adults ages 75 and older: 31% say marijuana should be legal for both medical and recreational use.

By comparison, half of adults between the ages of 65 and 74 say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, and larger shares in younger age groups say the same.

Republicans continue to be less supportive than Democrats of legalizing marijuana for both legal and recreational use: 42% of Republicans favor legalizing marijuana for both purposes, compared with 72% of Democrats.

There continue to be ideological differences within each party:

• 34% of conservative Republicans say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, compared with a 57% majority of moderate and liberal Republicans.
• 62% of conservative and moderate Democrats say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, while an overwhelming majority of liberal Democrats (84%) say this.

Along with differences by party and age, there are also age differences within each party on the issue.

A 57% majority of Republicans ages 18 to 29 favor making marijuana legal for medical and recreational use, compared with 52% among those ages 30 to 49 and much smaller shares of older Republicans.

Still, wide majorities of Republicans in all age groups favor legalizing marijuana at least for medical use. Among those ages 65 and older, just 20% say marijuana should not be legal even for medical purposes.

While majorities of Democrats across all age groups support legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use, older Democrats are less likely to say this.

About half of Democrats ages 75 and older (53%) say marijuana should be legal for both purposes, but much larger shares of younger Democrats say the same (including 81% of Democrats ages 18 to 29). Still, only 7% of Democrats ages 65 and older think marijuana should not be legalized even for medical use, similar to the share of all other Democrats who say this.

Substantial shares of Americans across racial and ethnic groups say when marijuana is legal for recreational use, it has a more positive than negative impact on the economy and criminal justice system.

About half of White (52%), Black (53%) and Hispanic (51%) adults say legalizing recreational marijuana is good for local economies. A slightly smaller share of Asian adults (46%) say the same.

Criminal justice

Across racial and ethnic groups, about four-in-ten say that recreational marijuana being legal makes the criminal justice system fairer, with smaller shares saying it would make it less fair.

However, there are wider racial differences on questions regarding the impact of recreational marijuana on the use of other drugs and the safety of communities.

Use of other drugs

Nearly half of Black adults (48%) say recreational marijuana legalization doesn’t have an effect on the use of drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. Another 32% in this group say it decreases the use of these drugs and 18% say it increases their use.

In contrast, Hispanic adults are slightly more likely to say legal marijuana increases the use of these other drugs (39%) than to say it decreases this use (30%); 29% say it has no impact.

Among White adults, the balance of opinion is mixed: 28% say marijuana legalization increases the use of other drugs and 25% say it decreases their use (45% say it has no impact). Views among Asian adults are also mixed, though a smaller share (31%) say legalization has no impact on the use of other drugs.

Community safety

Hispanic and Asian adults also are more likely to say marijuana’s legalization makes communities less safe: 41% of Hispanic adults and 46% of Asian adults say this, compared with 34% of White adults and 24% of Black adults.

Young Americans view the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in more positive terms compared with their older counterparts.

Clear majorities of adults under 30 say it is good for local economies (71%) and that it makes the criminal justice system fairer (59%).

By comparison, a third of Americans ages 65 and older say legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is good for local economies; about as many (32%) say it makes the criminal justice system more fair.

There also are sizable differences in opinion by age about how legalizing recreational marijuana affects the use of other drugs and the safety of communities.

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Most americans now live in a legal marijuana state – and most have at least one dispensary in their county, americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, clear majorities of black americans favor marijuana legalization, easing of criminal penalties, concern about drug addiction has declined in u.s., even in areas where fatal overdoses have risen the most, most popular, report materials.

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Five Reasons Why We Should Legalize Cannabis

Cannabis use in the United States has had a long and complicated history. For decades, people who used cannabis were subject to social ostracization and criminal prosecution. However, attitudes toward cannabis have been evolving in recent years. An increasing number of states have started to legalize cannabis for medical or recreational use. This shift in policy has been driven by a variety of factors including changing public attitudes and the potential economic benefits of legalization. In this article, we will explore the potential benefits of legalizing cannabis in our country.

1. Legalization for the Environment

Legalizing cannabis can have significant benefits for the environment. When cannabis is grown illegally, it is often done in environmentally damaging ways, such as using chemical pesticides or clearing primary forests to make room for crops. Legalization could allow customers to support more environmental growers. This will incentivize more responsible growing practices, such as the use of organic farming methods or the use of renewable energy sources to power indoor grow operations. In addition, the culture of growing cannabis can help to discover and preserve precious marijuana seeds , increasing biodiversity and facilitating a deeper understanding of cannabis plants and their cultivation.

2. Legalization for Justice

Where cannabis is illegal, people are being arrested and charged for possession or sale, which leads to costly court cases and a burden on the criminal justice system. Legalization would free up law enforcement resources to focus on more serious crimes and simultaneously reduce the number of people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. This could help to reduce the overall prison population and save taxpayers money.

In addition, legalization can have significant benefits for justice and equity, particularly for marginalized communities that have been disproportionately affected by the criminalization of cannabis. Communities of color have been particularly affected by the war on drugs, with Black Americans being nearly four times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white Americans, despite similar rates of use.

By regulating cannabis cultivation and sales, legalization can help to eliminate the black market and reduce the involvement of criminal organizations in the cannabis industry. This can lead to safer communities and reduced drug-related violence in communities that have been most affected by the criminalization of cannabis.

3. Legalization for Public Health

Cannabis has been shown to have many beneficial and therapeutic effects on both physical and mental health. However, people may be hesitant to seek medical marijuana treatment due to fear of legal repercussions if cannabis is illegal. Legalization can allow more people to enjoy better health outcomes. It can also promote the safer use of cannabis by educating the public on appropriate cannabis use and providing quality control measures for cannabis products. Legalization can also lead to increased research into potential medical applications of cannabis and could lead to the development of innovative treatments.

Another potential perk of cannabis legalization is that it could reduce the use of more harmful drugs. In the absence of cannabis, people may turn to more dangerous drugs like heroin or fentanyl to manage chronic pain or other conditions. By legalizing cannabis, we can provide a safer alternative for these individuals and could reduce the overall demand for these more dangerous drugs. States that have legalized cannabis found a decrease in opioid overdose deaths and hospitalizations, suggesting that cannabis are an effective alternative to prescription painkillers.

4. Legalization for the Economy

The legalization of cannabis can generate significant tax revenue for governments and create new economic opportunities. When cannabis is illegal, it is sold on the black market, and no taxes are collected on these sales. However, when it is legal, sales can be regulated, and taxes can be imposed on those sales. In states that have legalized cannabis, tax revenue from cannabis sales has been in the millions of dollars , with California registering a whopping $1.2 billion in cannabis tax revenue in 2021. This impressive income can be used to reduce budget deficits, fund various public services such as education and healthcare, and create new opportunities for investment in projects that revitalize the economy.

Aside from tax revenue, legalizing cannabis can create new jobs. The cannabis industry is a rapidly growing industry, and legalization could lead to the creation of new jobs in areas such as cultivation, processing, and retail sales. This can help to reduce unemployment and create new gainful opportunities for people who may have struggled to find employment in other industries. Legalization can also lead to increased investment in related industries, such as the development of new products or technologies to improve cannabis cultivation or the creation of new retail businesses. There are now several venture capital funds and investment groups that focus solely on cannabis-related enterprises.

5. Legalization for Acceptance

Finally, legalization could help reduce the stigma surrounding cannabis use. Before cannabis legalization, people who use the plant were often viewed as criminals or deviants. Legalization can help change this perception and lead to more open and honest conversations about cannabis use. Ultimately, legalization could lead to a more accepting and inclusive society where individuals are not judged or discriminated against for their personal and healthcare choices. By legalizing cannabis, we can harness the power of a therapeutic plant. Legalization can heal not just physical and mental ailments of individuals but also the social wounds that have resulted from its criminalization.

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The most convincing argument for legalizing LSD, shrooms, and other psychedelics

by German Lopez

I have a profound fear of death. It’s not bad enough to cause serious depression or anxiety. But it is bad enough to make me avoid thinking about the possibility of dying — to avoid a mini existential crisis in my mind.

But it turns out there may be a better cure for this fear than simply not thinking about it. It’s not yoga, a new therapy program, or a medicine currently on the (legal) market. It’s psychedelic drugs — LSD, ibogaine, and psilocybin, which is found in magic mushrooms.

This is the case for legalizing hallucinogens. Although the drugs have gotten some media attention in recent years for helping cancer patients deal with their fear of death and helping people quit smoking, there’s also a similar potential boon for the nonmedical, even recreational psychedelic user. As hallucinogens get a renewed look by researchers, they’re finding that the substances may improve almost anyone’s mood and quality of life — as long as they’re taken in the right setting, typically a controlled environment.

This isn’t something that even drug policy reformers are comfortable calling for yet. “There’s not any political momentum for that right now,” Jag Davies, who focuses on hallucinogen research at the Drug Policy Alliance, said, citing the general public’s views of psychedelics as extremely dangerous — close to drugs like crack cocaine, heroin, and meth.

But it’s an idea that experts and researchers are taking more seriously. And while the studies are new and ongoing, and a national regulatory model for legal hallucinogens is practically nonexistent, the available research is very promising — enough to reconsider the demonization and prohibition of these potentially amazing drugs.

Hallucinogens’ potentially huge benefit: ego death

Mushroom, mushroom.

The most remarkable potential benefit of hallucinogens is what’s called “ego death,” an experience in which people lose their sense of self-identity and, as a result, are able to detach themselves from worldly concerns like a fear of death, addiction, and anxiety over temporary — perhaps exaggerated — life events.

When people take a potent dose of a psychedelic, they can experience spiritual, hallucinogenic trips that can make them feel like they’re transcending their own bodies and even time and space. This, in turn, gives people a lot of perspective — if they can see themselves as a small part of a much broader universe, it’s a lot easier for them to discard personal, relatively insignificant and inconsequential concerns about their own lives and death.

That may sound like pseudoscience. And the research on hallucinogens is so early that scientists don’t fully grasp how it works. But it’s a concept that’s been found in some medical trials, and something that many people who’ve tried hallucinogens can vouch for experiencing. It’s one of the reasons why preliminary , small studies and research from the 1950s and ‘60s found hallucinogens can treat — and maybe cure — addiction, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Charles Grob, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and pediatrics who studies psychedelics, conducted a study that gave psilocybin to late-stage cancer patients. “The reports I got back from the subjects, from their partners, from their families were very positive — that the experience was of great value, and it helped them regain a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning to their life,” he told me in 2014. “The quality of their lives notably improved.”

In a fantastic look at the research, Michael Pollan at the New Yorker captured the phenomenon through the stories of cancer patients who participated in hallucinogen trials:

Death looms large in the journeys taken by the cancer patients. A woman I’ll call Deborah Ames, a breast-cancer survivor in her sixties (she asked not to be identified), described zipping through space as if in a video game until she arrived at the wall of a crematorium and realized, with a fright, “I’ve died and now I’m going to be cremated. The next thing I know, I’m below the ground in this gorgeous forest, deep woods, loamy and brown. There are roots all around me and I’m seeing the trees growing, and I’m part of them. It didn’t feel sad or happy, just natural, contented, peaceful. I wasn’t gone. I was part of the earth.” Several patients described edging up to the precipice of death and looking over to the other side. Tammy Burgess, given a diagnosis of ovarian cancer at fifty-five, found herself gazing across “the great plain of consciousness. It was very serene and beautiful. I felt alone but I could reach out and touch anyone I’d ever known. When my time came, that’s where my life would go once it left me and that was O.K.”

But Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at New York University’s Marron Institute, noted that these benefits don’t apply only to terminally ill patients. The studies conducted so far have found benefits that apply to anyone : a reduced fear of death, greater psychological openness, and increased life satisfaction.

“It’s not required to have a disease to be afraid of dying,” Kleiman said. “But it’s probably an undesirable condition if you have the alternative available. And there’s now some evidence that these experiences can make the person less afraid to die.”

Kleiman added, “The obvious application is people who are currently dying with a terminal diagnosis. But being born is a terminal diagnosis. And people’s lives might be better if they live out of the valley of the shadow of death.”

Again, the current research on all of this is early, with much of the science still relying on studies from the ‘50s and ‘60s. But the most recent preliminary findings are promising enough that experts like Kleiman are cautiously considering how to build a model that would let people take these potentially beneficial drugs legally — while also acknowledging that psychedelics do pose some big risks.

The two big risks of hallucinogens: accidents and bad trips

Charles Grob, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, is leading the way in psychedelic research.

Hallucinogens aren’t perfectly safe, but they’re not dangerous in the way some people might think. As Grob previously told me , there’s little to no chance that someone will become addicted to psychedelics — they’re not physically addictive like heroin or tobacco, and the experiences are so demanding and draining that a great majority of people simply won’t be interested in constantly taking the drugs. He also said that hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, which can cause the disturbances widely known as “flashbacks,” is “uncommon, but you will see it, particularly among someone who has taken hallucinogens a lot.”

Kleiman drew a comparison to marijuana to explain the risks. “The risk with cannabis is, primarily, that you lose control of your cannabis taking,” he said. “The risk with LSD is primarily that you’ll do something stupid to ruin the experience, or you’ll have such a scary experience that it’ll leave you damaged. But those are safety risks rather than addiction risks.”

This gets to the two major dangers of hallucinogens: accidents and bad trips. The first risk is similar to what you’d expect from other drugs: When people are intoxicated in any way, they’re more prone to doing bad, dumb things. As Kleiman explained, “People take LSD and think they can fly and jump off buildings. It’s true that it’s a drug warrior fairy tale, but it’s also true in that it actually happens. People drop acid and run out in traffic. People do stupid shit under high doses of psychedelics.”

Bad trips are also a concern. A bad psychedelic experience can result in psychotic episodes, a lost sense of reality, and even long-term psychological trauma in very rare situations, especially among people using other drugs or with a history of mental health issues. Just like psychedelics can lead to long-term psychological benefits, they can lead to long-term psychological pain.

These risks are why not many people are seriously discussing legalizing hallucinogens in the same way the US allows alcohol or is now beginning to allow marijuana. But the potential benefits of hallucinogens are leading some experts to consider how these drugs could be legalized in some capacity.

“I think it’s a bad idea to treat hallucinogens like we treat cocaine or cannabis,” Kleiman said. “They pose different risks and offer different benefits.” He added, “But I don’t think we’re ever going to free these substances from careful legal control.”

How hallucinogens can be legalized

Drop some LSD — but maybe only in a controlled environment.

So how can you maximize the benefits and minimize the risks? The most convincing idea so far is letting people take psychedelics in a controlled setting, in which multiple participants can be watched over by trained supervisors who ensure the experience doesn’t go poorly.

So far, this is what the medical side has focused on: The typical medical trial involves doctors watching over a deathly ill patient or someone dealing with addiction who takes psilocybin. But if the concept is expanded to allow nonmedical users, then perhaps professionals who aren’t doctors but are trained in guiding someone through a trip could take up the role. “I imagine someone who has training in managing that experience, and a license, and liability insurance, and a facility,” Kleiman said.

Here’s how it would work: A psychedelic user would go through some sort of preparation period to make sure she knows what she’s getting into. Then she could make an appointment at a place offering these services. She would show up at this appointment, take the drug of her choice (or whatever the facility provides), and wait to allow it to kick in. As the trip occurs, a supervisor would watch over the user — not being too pushy, but making sure he’s available to guide her through any rough spots. In some studies, doctors have also prepared certain activities — a soundtrack or food, for example — that may help set the right mood and setting for someone on psychedelics. Different places will likely experiment with different approaches, including how many people can participate at once and how a room should look.

The most convincing idea so far is letting people take psychedelics in a controlled setting

Kleiman also envisions a potential system in which people can eventually graduate to using the drug solo. “It’s like Red Cross water safety instruction,” he said. “You start out, you’re a newbie. You don’t go into the pool without a trained, certified person to watch you, guide you, and keep you safe. After a while, your teacher gives you a test to certify that you’re safe to be in the water alone. And you might even get certified to become a trainer, so you can guide newbies yourself.”

If pulled off correctly, this would maximize the best possible outcomes and minimize the worst. Supervisors could help prevent accidents, and they could walk people through good and bad trips, letting users relax and get something meaningful out of the experience.

There are risks to the controlled setting. If a supervisor is poorly trained or malicious, it could lead to a horrific trip that could actually worsen someone’s mental state. This is why regulation and licensing will be crucial to getting the idea right.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, argued for a looser model that could, for example, allow psychedelics to be sold over the counter. “You dramatically decrease the black market. So long as you have people who have to go through some sort of gatekeeper, or who can be denied, you’re going to continue to have a black market,” Nadelmann said. “Secondly, this means the percent of consumers who got a product of known potency and purity from a reliable source would increase.”

But the black market demand for psychedelics is very small, with only 0.5 percent of Americans 12 and older in 2013 saying they used hallucinogens in the past month. So allowing over-the-counter sales would likely have a tiny benefit at best on public health and criminal groups’ profits from the black market.

The debate about which model works best will likely go on for some time, especially if different places test different approaches. There’s no doubt it will be tricky to hash out exactly how to legalize and regulate these drugs, as some states are learning with marijuana .

But if we know the benefits to public health and well-being are real, it’s irresponsible to let the potential go untapped. It may soon be time for America to seriously consider legalizing LSD, magic mushrooms, and other psychedelic drugs.

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Drug Use Isn’t All or Only an Individual Choice

There are social and political dimensions to the use of alcohol and other drugs..

Updated August 30, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• What Is Addiction?
• Find counselling to overcome addiction
• Individuals' choices to use drugs or alcohol are always shaped in a social and political context.
• Our more familiar models of care are important but inadequate in addressing drug use.
• Political care is necessary for engaging the systems and structures in which drugs are used.

Drug use and addiction are simultaneously a person-level phenomenon (individuals use drugs and may become addicted), an inter-person or social-level phenomenon (using is a social practice often done with others that creates and reinforces meanings and values), and a politic-level phenomenon (economic, medical, political, legal, religious, and military powers create, maintain, and reinforce oppressive structures, institutions, and practices). The person, inter-person, and politic levels are woven together so that it’s impossible to untangle their elements.

Examples of drug use and addiction as politic-level phenomena

In the late 1830s, the British demanded that China open its markets to opium imports. Chinese unwillingness was met with British military and naval authority. China was forced to pay exorbitant fees to the British government, which wreaked havoc on the Chinese economy, creating large-scale poverty and driving Chinese migration to the U.S. West.

In the U.S., the Chinese often worked digging mines and putting down railroad tracks. “Chinatowns” began springing up across the country as railways were laid. Within these towns were dens that were akin to social clubs where Chinese laborers would smoke opium for relief and pleasure. Reporting on these “Chinatowns” by white-owned newspapers created a moral panic and perhaps drew more white people to them.

White people had been consuming “medically-approved” morphine in a variety of ways, most commonly in the form of laudanum, which is morphine in an alcohol tincture. The tenor of newspapers and politicians was toxic, claiming that the Chinese were taking “our” jobs, corrupting “our” youth, ruining cities, and causing moral rot. The anti-Chinese furor resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was reauthorized and made permanent in 1904 and enforced until 1943.

In the post-Civil War period, cocaine was ubiquitous in a variety of beverage products (sodas and colas) and offered as cures for a variety of maladies, including allergies and fatigue. It was also used as anesthesia and in ophthalmology procedures.

While many in the United States were consuming cocaine in some form, Black Americans were singled out for their consumption. The stereotype of the “Black cocaine fiend” supported a narrative that Black people were especially susceptible to its effects and, therefore, posed a risk to society. This false stereotype of Black people as cocaine, dope, or crack fiends persists as a staple in American drug policy today.[i]

The War on Drugs was initially launched by Richard Nixon but fervently embraced and expanded by Ronald Reagan. The rhetoric remade “the drug problem” as a moral issue. Drug use or possession was the justification for a variety of punitive programs, including mandatory minimums and three strikes in sentencing.

Drug use was portrayed as all or only a matter of individual choice and, hence, individual responsibility. The mid-1980s found us in the midst of “the crack epidemic,” which was a production of majority white media perception and replication. While plenty of white Americans were using cocaine in various forms, crack became coded as Black and as the most dangerous drug because of its addictive qualities.

What I hope is clear in these brief snapshots is the ways that racism is the mother of invention and reinvention of drug policies. The War on Drugs is really a war on certain people who use drugs; drug policies are a means to control populations.

Types of care

Drug use and addiction are person-level phenomena but are simultaneously an inter-person and politic-level phenomena as well. Care will look different on these three levels, with the first two involving the more familiar ways we tend to think of care.

On the person level, emergency departments (EDs) in hospitals have become ground zero for overdosing patients, thereby providing an opportunity for intervention and treatment. Emergency department physicians may administer buprenorphine, which significantly reduces cravings. Physicians in prescribing, social workers in assessing, and psychologists in diagnosing must come to have a more nuanced understanding of the reasons why people are using and abusing the drugs they are. Unless and until these reasons and patterns of use are understood by both medical and legal professionals, the chances of any form of treatment being effective are slim.

On the inter-person or social level, friends and families need a great deal of support and care. The children of those who have overdosed may be traumatized; teachers are on the frontline, offering triage. Social workers find themselves in the position of making recommendations about whether to remove children from their homes and where to place them. On the person level and inter-person or social level, all of us must be more attuned in understanding the staggering burdens that many powerless, marginalized, and exploited people carry every day.

Focusing primarily, if not solely, on these two levels continues to obscure the politic-level dimensions of drug use and addiction. This, in turn, will reproduce, normalize, and reinforce those structural dimensions that contribute to maladaptive drug use and addiction. These structural dimensions require systemic forms of redress, which is a political form of care.

Political care involves social, economic, and governmental practices and policies that help to transform the conditions that make drug use seem attractive or inevitable for some groups of people. Some suggestions include:

• Provide better access to childcare, early childhood education , and after-school programs.
• Provide better access to elder care.
• Create more affordable housing.
• Provide more accessible and affordable treatment options with medication -assisted therapies. It should be as easy to get drug treatment as it is to get drugs.
• Make fentanyl testing strips widely available.
• Undertake law enforcement reform and training with mental health professionals.
• Advocate for more criminal justice reform on drug laws and sentencing.
• Make drug courts and treatment options, including medication-assisted therapies, more available for incarcerated individuals.

[i] My knowledge of this example comes from Carl Erik Fisher’s book , The Urge: Our History of Addiction (New York: Penguin, 2022). See chapter six, "Junkies." I highly recommend this book for providing an insightful and exhaustive examination of the economic, moral, and political roles drugs and drug use have played throughout history.

Peg O'Connor, Ph.D. , is a professor of philosophy and gender, women, and sexuality studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.

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Fact-checking warnings from Democrats about Project 2025 and Donald Trump

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Project 2025 has a starring role in this week’s Democratic National Convention.

And it was front and center on Night 1.

WATCH: Hauling large copy of Project 2025, Michigan state Sen. McMorrow speaks at 2024 DNC

“This is Project 2025,” Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, said as she laid a hardbound copy of the 900-page document on the lectern. “Over the next four nights, you are going to hear a lot about what is in this 900-page document. Why? Because this is the Republican blueprint for a second Trump term.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has warned Americans about “Trump’s Project 2025” agenda — even though former President Donald Trump doesn’t claim the conservative presidential transition document.

“Donald Trump wants to take our country backward,” Harris said July 23 in Milwaukee. “He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously, and can you believe they put that thing in writing?”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has joined in on the talking point.

“Don’t believe (Trump) when he’s playing dumb about this Project 2025. He knows exactly what it’ll do,” Walz said Aug. 9 in Glendale, Arizona.

Trump’s campaign has worked to build distance from the project, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, led with contributions from dozens of conservative groups.

Much of the plan calls for extensive executive-branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues. It lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president.

Project 2025 offers a sweeping vision for a Republican-led executive branch, and some of its policies mirror Trump’s 2024 agenda, But Harris and her presidential campaign have at times gone too far in describing what the project calls for and how closely the plans overlap with Trump’s campaign.

PolitiFact researched Harris’ warnings about how the plan would affect reproductive rights, federal entitlement programs and education, just as we did for President Joe Biden’s Project 2025 rhetoric. Here’s what the project does and doesn’t call for, and how it squares with Trump’s positions.

Are Trump and Project 2025 connected?

To distance himself from Project 2025 amid the Democratic attacks, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “knows nothing” about it and has “no idea” who is in charge of it. (CNN identified at least 140 former advisers from the Trump administration who have been involved.)

The Heritage Foundation sought contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations for its policy vision for the next Republican presidency, which was published in 2023.

Project 2025 is now winding down some of its policy operations, and director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, is stepping down, The Washington Post reported July 30. Trump campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita denounced the document.

WATCH: A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors

However, Project 2025 contributors include a number of high-ranking officials from Trump’s first administration, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.

A recently released recording of Russell Vought, a Project 2025 author and the former director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, showed Vought saying Trump’s “very supportive of what we do.” He said Trump was only distancing himself because Democrats were making a bogeyman out of the document.

Project 2025 wouldn’t ban abortion outright, but would curtail access

The Harris campaign shared a graphic on X that claimed “Trump’s Project 2025 plan for workers” would “go after birth control and ban abortion nationwide.”

The plan doesn’t call to ban abortion nationwide, though its recommendations could curtail some contraceptives and limit abortion access.

What’s known about Trump’s abortion agenda neither lines up with Harris’ description nor Project 2025’s wish list.

Project 2025 says the Department of Health and Human Services Department should “return to being known as the Department of Life by explicitly rejecting the notion that abortion is health care.”

It recommends that the Food and Drug Administration reverse its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion. Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. — accounting for around 63 percent in 2023.

If mifepristone were to remain approved, Project 2025 recommends new rules, such as cutting its use from 10 weeks into pregnancy to seven. It would have to be provided to patients in person — part of the group’s efforts to limit access to the drug by mail. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to mifepristone’s FDA approval over procedural grounds.

WATCH: Trump’s plans for health care and reproductive rights if he returns to White House The manual also calls for the Justice Department to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act on mifepristone, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials. Abortion access supporters fear that a strict interpretation of the law could go further to ban mailing the materials used in procedural abortions, such as surgical instruments and equipment.

The plan proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention how many abortions take place within their borders. The plan also would prohibit abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funds. It also calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the training of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, omits abortion training.

The document says some forms of emergency contraception — particularly Ella, a pill that can be taken within five days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy — should be excluded from no-cost coverage. The Affordable Care Act requires most private health insurers to cover recommended preventive services, which involves a range of birth control methods, including emergency contraception.

Trump has recently said states should decide abortion regulations and that he wouldn’t block access to contraceptives. Trump said during his June 27 debate with Biden that he wouldn’t ban mifepristone after the Supreme Court “approved” it. But the court rejected the lawsuit based on standing, not the case’s merits. He has not weighed in on the Comstock Act or said whether he supports it being used to block abortion medication, or other kinds of abortions.

Project 2025 doesn’t call for cutting Social Security, but proposes some changes to Medicare

“When you read (Project 2025),” Harris told a crowd July 23 in Wisconsin, “you will see, Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

The Project 2025 document does not call for Social Security cuts. None of its 10 references to Social Security addresses plans for cutting the program.

Harris also misleads about Trump’s Social Security views.

In his earlier campaigns and before he was a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he’s open to major overhauls of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, “There’s a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.” However, he quickly walked that statement back, and his CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s campaign website says that not “a single penny” should be cut from Social Security. We rated Harris’ claim that Trump intends to cut Social Security Mostly False.

Project 2025 does propose changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, the private insurance offering in Medicare, the “default” enrollment option. Unlike Original Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and can also require prior authorization, meaning that the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans don’t have prior authorization requirements.

The manual also calls for repealing health policies enacted under Biden, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. The law enabled Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for the first time in history, and recently resulted in an agreement with drug companies to lower the prices of 10 expensive prescriptions for Medicare enrollees.

Trump, however, has said repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut Medicare.

Project 2025 would eliminate the Education Department, which Trump supports

The Harris campaign said Project 2025 would “eliminate the U.S. Department of Education” — and that’s accurate. Project 2025 says federal education policy “should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” The plan scales back the federal government’s role in education policy and devolves the functions that remain to other agencies.

Aside from eliminating the department, the project also proposes scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would let states opt out of federal education programs and calls for passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to ones passed in some Republican-led state legislatures.

Republicans, including Trump, have pledged to close the department, which gained its status in 1979 within Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s presidential Cabinet.

In one of his Agenda 47 policy videos, Trump promised to close the department and “to send all education work and needs back to the states.” Eliminating the department would have to go through Congress.

What Project 2025, Trump would do on overtime pay

In the graphic, the Harris campaign says Project 2025 allows “employers to stop paying workers for overtime work.”

The plan doesn’t call for banning overtime wages. It recommends changes to some Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulations and to overtime rules. Some changes, if enacted, could result in some people losing overtime protections, experts told us.

The document proposes that the Labor Department maintain an overtime threshold “that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States).” This threshold is the amount of money executive, administrative or professional employees need to make for an employer to exempt them from overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

In 2019, the Trump’s administration finalized a rule that expanded overtime pay eligibility to most salaried workers earning less than about $35,568, which it said made about 1.3 million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The Trump-era threshold is high enough to cover most line workers in lower-cost regions, Project 2025 said.

The Biden administration raised that threshold to $43,888 beginning July 1, and that will rise to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. That would grant overtime eligibility to about 4 million workers, the Labor Department said.

It’s unclear how many workers Project 2025’s proposal to return to the Trump-era overtime threshold in some parts of the country would affect, but experts said some would presumably lose the right to overtime wages.

Other overtime proposals in Project 2025’s plan include allowing some workers to choose to accumulate paid time off instead of overtime pay, or to work more hours in one week and fewer in the next, rather than receive overtime.

Trump’s past with overtime pay is complicated. In 2016, the Obama administration said it would raise the overtime to salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year, about double the exemption level set in 2004 of $23,660 a year.

But when a judge blocked the Obama rule, the Trump administration didn’t challenge the court ruling. Instead it set its own overtime threshold, which raised the amount, but by less than Obama.

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7 big issues at stake in the 2024 election

WASHINGTON — The policy contrasts between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are sharpening as the general election campaign gets fully underway.

But what does the choice represent for ordinary voters and the economic and cultural issues they care about? A rematch between the Democratic incumbent and his Republican predecessor may feel uninspiring to many voters, but the policy stakes are enormous for tens of millions of Americans — and the world.

Here are seven big issues at stake in the 2024 election.

The contrast: Biden favors federal abortion protections; Trump opposes them. Trump supported nationwide restrictions on abortion as president but now downplays the need for a federal ban, as Republicans are divided over the issue. Biden does not support federal limits.

Biden has championed the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill to protect abortion rights in all 50 states under federal law and prohibit medically unnecessary hurdles to accessing the procedure. He has asked voters to send him a Democratic Congress that supports legal abortion to achieve that.

Trump has boasted that he "broke Roe v. Wade" by picking three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned it, delivering on a four-decade goal of the GOP. More recently, Trump has openly fretted that the backlash may cost him and his party the election. Last week, Trump said the issue should be left to states, a shift from his support for nationwide restrictions when he was president. His new stance has drawn pushback from GOP allies, like Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina , and anti-abortion-rights advocates, who say that he is wrong and that Republicans should not be deterred from their long-standing goal of enacting some nationwide abortion limits.

Some Republicans downplay the prospects of federal abortion restrictions’ passing Congress, even if they win full control. Biden and his allies are telling voters to look at the GOP’s long history of championing federal restrictions and not their recent rhetoric.

Immigration

The contrast: Trump has promised a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration and tougher executive actions; Biden is asking Congress to give him more tools to manage an overwhelmed border and create new legal pathways to immigrate to the U.S.

Trump has called existing border laws an existential threat to the U.S., saying migrants are “ poisoning the blood of our country” and bringing new “ languages .” His campaign website says: “President Trump will shut down Biden’s border disaster. He will again end catch-and-release, restore Remain in Mexico , and eliminate asylum fraud. In cooperative states, President Trump will deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals.”

After having rescinded some of Trump's policies, Biden has recently shifted to support stricter immigration laws as the system remains overwhelmed. He championed a bipartisan bill to raise the bar for gaining asylum, grant more U.S. resources to process asylum claims and turn away migrants who do not qualify, and empower the president to temporarily shut down the border if migration levels hit certain triggers. (Republicans blocked the bill in the Senate amid lobbying by Trump , who wants to use the border as an election issue.) Biden has also endorsed the U.S. Citizenship Act , which would grant a pathway to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally if they pass background checks and pay their taxes.

Fundamentally, Trump has aligned with forces who want less immigration into the country, while Biden has embraced the belief that immigrants make the U.S. better.

Health care and prescription drugs

The contrast: Biden wants to extend Affordable Care Act provisions and empower Medicare to negotiate more prescription drugs; Trump has aggressively criticized the ACA but not offered a health care plan.

Biden, who was vice president when the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, sees it as a cherished achievement to protect and strengthen. The law, also known as "Obamacare," which has extended coverage to 45 million people through subsidies, insurance mandates and a Medicaid expansion, continues to face conservative opposition.

Separately, Biden has touted a provision in his party-line Inflation Reduction Act that empowers Medicare to negotiate lower prices for 10 prescription drugs. He said he wants to boost that to 50 if he is re-elected, with the goal of $200 billion in savings.

Trump spent his four years as president fighting unsuccessfully to repeal and unravel the law — through legislation and executive action and endorsing lawsuits to wipe it out. In November, Trump called for revisiting plans to "terminate" the ACA . He has recently sought to downplay that and insists he only wants to improve the law. But he has not offered a health care plan. Many of his GOP allies in Congress still favor repealing or undoing the ACA, including a budget by the Republican Study Committee, which boasts about 80% of the House GOP conference as members, including Speaker Mike Johnson, of Louisiana.

The contrast: Trump's 2017 tax cuts expire at the end of next year, and he has called for extending them; Biden has called for raising taxes on families earning over $400,000 to fund various priorities.

A series of Trump tax cuts, which Republicans passed on a party-line basis in 2017, expire at the end of 2025. Congress and the winner of the election will decide what happens to them.

In a recent private speech to wealthy donors, Trump s aid his policies include "extending the Trump tax cuts" if he is elected, according to a Trump campaign official. That would preserve lower rates across the income spectrum, with the biggest benefits for top earners.

Biden has attacked that law as a giveaway to the wealthiest Americans, vowing to make "big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their fair share." He has backed a corporate tax rate hike from 21% to 28% and said that "nobody earning less than $400,000 will pay an additional penny in federal taxes." Biden is also calling for a $3,600-per-child tax cut for families, an $800 average tax break for "front-line workers" and a 25% minimum tax on billionaires, according to a newly released campaign plank.

The expiration of the Trump tax cuts will restore the unlimited federal deduction for state and local taxes, which Republicans had capped at $10,000 in the 2017 law. Republicans broadly support preserving the cap, with some exceptions, while most Democrats want to lift it.

Judges and the Supreme Court

The contrast: Their track records tell a clear story. Trump has picked young conservative judges to serve on the federal bench, while Biden has picked liberals with a focus on professional and personal diversity.

One of the clearest contrasts is what kinds of judges Trump and Biden would pick for lifetime appointments on the federal courts. A simple way for voters to think about it is whether they prefer new judges with the conservative views of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's first Supreme Court pick, or with the liberal views of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden's (so far only) high court pick.

As president, Trump nominated young conservative judges who will serve for generations. Biden has focused on finding judges with diverse backgrounds and résumés, including more civil rights lawyers and public defenders.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether a Supreme Court vacancy will open up in the next four years. The presidential election winner and the party that controls the Senate would fill it.

The contrast: Trump is pushing a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports; Biden's White House opposes that, saying it would raise inflation.

Trump, long a skeptic of U.S. trade deals, has proposed to impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods if he returns to the White House. He recently told Fox News that it could be 60% — or potentially “more than that” — on imports of Chinese goods.

Biden opposes that idea. In a memo over the weekend, the White House slammed the idea of "across-the-board tariffs that would raise taxes and prices by $1,500 per American family," without naming Trump; it referred to an estimate by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, that Trump's 10% tax on imports could cost an average American household $1,500 per year.

Biden, instead, has sought to boost domestic manufacturing with major federal investments in semiconductors and electric vehicles.

Foreign policy and NATO

The contrast: Biden favors Ukraine aid, while Trump is skeptical of it; Biden supports NATO and a traditional view of American power, while Trump has criticized NATO and voiced some isolationist views.

The clearest example of the foreign policy differences between the two concerns the fate of Ukraine, which is running low on ammunition and says it needs U.S. assistance to continue holding off Russia’s aggression. Biden is an ardent proponent of helping Ukraine, while Trump has poured cold water on U.S. aid to Ukraine and successfully pressured House Republicans to block it since they took the majority in January 2023.

And that points to a deeper divide: Biden is an outspoken supporter of the NATO alliance as a bulwark against adversaries like Russia and China and of preserving the post-World War II order. Trump has dialed up his criticisms of NATO and aligned with a growing isolationist wing in the U.S. that wants to be less involved in global affairs. Trump recently said that as president, he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to member countries who are “delinquent” in their dues.

Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

RFK Jr. Was My Drug Dealer

Kennedy’s endorsement of Donald Trump raises an awkward question.

he leading third-party candidate for president—an environmental lawyer and activist, a son and nephew of legendary liberal Democratic politicians—just quit the race and announced that he is joining the campaign of the most anti-environment president and presidential nominee in recent history, the leader of a Republican Party he has turned into a right-wing, anti-democratic, protofascist personality cult.

I could go on and on and on, cataloging the contradictions and abandonment of principle, all gobsmacking.

But Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy—as I’ve referred to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since we met freshman year at Harvard—have always had many features in common as well. Both are entitled playboy sons of northeastern wealth; both (in Michelle Obama’s words) were “afforded the grace of failing forward” as misbehaving, underachieving adolescents admitted to Ivy League colleges thanks to “the affirmative action of generational wealth”; both were reckless lifelong adolescents, both attention-craving philanderers and liars, both jerks. And Kennedy’s hour-long speech today was nearly as meandering and filled with lies as any average hour of Trump.

On the subject of reckless-adolescent entitlement, I’ve got one Bobby Kennedy anecdote to tell. But it’s actually relevant to his endorsement of Donald Trump for president and his apparent expectation of joining a second Trump administration.

In Kennedy’s speech today, he spoke at length about federal pharmaceutical regulation and programs addressing chronic disease. “I’m going to change that,” he said, promising to “staff” the health agencies very differently. “Within four years, America will be a healthy country … if President Trump is elected and honors his word.” Trump, he added, “has told me that he wants this to be his legacy.”

My Bobby Kennedy story involves pharmaceuticals—not the legal, lifesaving kind, such as the vaccines he’s made a career of lying about, but the recreational kind.

John Hendrickson: The first MAGA Democrat

As a candidate, Kennedy got a very sympathetic pass on his years of drug use because he’s an addict, having used heroin from ages 15 to 29. He quit when he was arrested after overdosing on a flight from Minneapolis to the Black Hills and found by police in South Dakota to be carrying heroin; he pleaded guilty and received only probation. Kennedy, as Joe Hagan wrote in a recent Vanity Fair profile, “has made his history of addiction part of his campaign narrative.” As a teenager in Nebraska, I’d smoked cannabis and dropped acid before I got to Harvard in 1972. Sometime during my freshman year, I tried cocaine, enjoyed it, and later decided to procure a gram for myself. A friend told me about a kid in our class who was selling coke.

The dealer was Bobby Kennedy. I’d never met him. I got in touch; he said sure, come over to his room in Hurlbut, his dorm, where I’d never been, a five-minute walk. His roommate, whom I knew, was the future journalist Peter Kaplan—with whom I, like Kennedy, remained friends for the rest of his life. He left as I arrived. I wondered whether he always did that when Bobby had customers.

“Hi. Bobby,” Kennedy introduced himself. Another kid, tall, lanky, and handsome, was in the room. “This is my brother Joe.” That is, Joseph P. Kennedy II, two years older, the future six-term Massachusetts congressman.

Bobby Kennedy wasn’t famous, but he was the most famous person I’d ever met.

He poured out a line for me to sample, and handed me an inch-and-a-half length of plastic drinking straw. I snorted. We chatted for a minute. I paid him, I believe, $40 in cash. It was a lot of money, the equivalent of $300 today. But cocaine bought from a Kennedy accompanied by a Kennedy brother —the moment of glamour seemed worth it.

Back in my dorm room 10 minutes later, I got a phone call.

“Hello?” “It’s Bobby.” “Hi.” “You took my straw !” I realized that I had indeed, and had thought nothing of it. Because … it was a crummy piece of plastic straw. But Bobby was pissed. “There are crystals inside it, man, growing . You took it.” Growing ? The residue of powdered cocaine mixed with mucus formed crystals over time? What did I know. It reminded me of some science-fair project. “So … you want the straw back?” “ Yeah , man.” I walked it back to his room. He didn’t smile or say thanks. It was the last time I ever bought coke from anyone.

A famous rich boy selling a hard drug that could’ve gotten him—or, more precisely, someone who wasn’t him —a years-long prison sentence. His almost fetishistic obsession with a bit of plastic trash. His greedy little burst of anger cloaked in righteousness. His faith that he was cultivating precious cocaine crystals. In retrospect, it has seemed to me a tiny illustration of the child as the father of the man he became: fantastical pseudoscientific crusader, middle-aged preppy dick who takes selfies with barbecued dogs and plays pranks with roadkill bear cubs he didn’t have time to eat.

But the reason I decided finally to share this anecdote is because of a criminal-justice policy advocated by the presidential candidate he’s just endorsed. It’s another of those many spectacular contradictions I mentioned earlier.

That is, Donald Trump, if he becomes president as Kennedy is now working to make happen, wants to start executing drug dealers. He said so in a speech as president in 2018: “These are terrible people, and we have to get tough on those people, because … if we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we’re wasting our time … And that toughness includes the death penalty … We’re gonna solve this problem … We’re gonna solve it with toughness … That’s what they most fear."

He said it again in 2022 when he announced his current candidacy: “We’re going to be asking [Congress to pass a law that] everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, [is] to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.”

Elizabeth Bruenig: Trump dreams of a swifter death penalty

And at a campaign rally this past April, he elaborated at length on his plan to kill drug dealers: “The only thing they understand is strength. They understand strength—and it’ll all stop.” Our policy, he explained, should be like that in the country he otherwise demonizes the most. “When I met with President Xi of China, I said, ‘Do you have a drug problem?’ ‘No no no,’ [he said,] ‘we have no drug problem.’ [I said,] ‘Why is that?’ ‘Quick trial!’ I said, ‘Tell me about a quick trial.’ When they catch the seller of drugs, the purveyor of drugs, the drug dealers, they immediately give them a trial. It takes one day. One day. At the end of that day, if they’re guilty, which they always are … within one day, that person is executed. They execute the drug dealers. They have zero drug problem. Zero.”

And so, one question for reporters to ask the new Trump campaigner and potential Trump-administration official Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is something like this: The candidate you’re campaigning for, in whose administration you apparently intend to serve, wants our laws rewritten so that drug dealers, particularly those who sell narcotics, face capital punishment. Given that you sold cocaine in your youth, how do you feel about his advocacy of a regime that might have resulted in your own execution at age 19?

Editor’s Note: The Kennedy campaign did not reply to requests for comment on this story.

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Analysis of Arguments: Should Marijuana Be Legalized? Annotated Bibliography

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Title of Article #1: Green, T. V. (2021). Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use. Pew Research Center. Web.

Pro Arguments (Support for your position):

• The majority of Americans agree on the necessity to legalize marijuana.
• Its medical and recreational use is a sufficient basis for this change.

Con Arguments (Opposing Views):

• The resistance of older populations to this idea is highly possible.
• This initiative is accompanied by concerns regarding the actual use of marijuana.

Definition(s)

History/background information.

Over the past years, the number of people in the United States supporting the legalization of marijuana doubled, which means the need for action.

Facts/Statistics/Expert Testimony

Numerous surveys conducted over the past decades confirm the support of marijuana legalization by 91% of Americans, whereas the opposition does not provide substantial objections.

Title of Article #2: Lopez, G. (2019). 9 questions about marijuana legalization you were too embarrassed to ask. The Vox. Web.

• Marijuana has already been legalized in eleven states, and their experience can be adopted.
• The need in unity in legislature is required for avoiding conflicts.
• With the development of marijuana market, manufacturers might avoid responsibility.
• The possibility of addiction does not allow introducing this change all over the country.

Over time, there has been no clear opinion of legislators regarding the legalization of marijuana, and the differences are attributed to the policies of Democratic and Republican activists.

Surveys among American indicate their support of the legalization of marijuana, but marijuana laws are varied across the country.

Title of Article #3: McCarthy, N. (2019). The arguments for and against marijuana legalization in the U.S. [Infographic]. Forbes. Web.

• New population groups, including adults aged 55 and older, begin to support this idea.
• The possibility of focusing on other crimes rather than the use of marijuana seems beneficial for their investigation.
• Driver safety after using marijuana does not make this idea an optimal initiative.
• The legalization of marijuana might encourage more people to use it.

In the past, the growing popularity of marijuana resulted in the formation of supporters and opponents of its legalization.

The conducted polls showed that both supporters and opponents of the legalization of marijuana provide substantial evidence for underpinning their particular views.

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IvyPanda. (2023, August 1). Analysis of Arguments: Should Marijuana Be Legalized? https://ivypanda.com/essays/analysis-of-arguments-should-marijuana-be-legalized/

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MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

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Legal documents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for lawyers. This raises the question: Why are these documents written in a style that makes them so impenetrable?

MIT cognitive scientists believe they have uncovered the answer to that question. Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese acts to convey a sense of authority, they conclude.

In a study appearing this week in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the researchers found that even non-lawyers use this type of language when asked to write laws.

“People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way,” says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study.

Eric Martinez PhD ’24 is the lead author of the study. Francis Mollica, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is also an author of the paper .

Casting a legal spell

Gibson’s research group has been studying the unique characteristics of legalese since 2020, when Martinez came to MIT after earning a law degree from Harvard Law School. In a 2022 study , Gibson, Martinez, and Mollica analyzed legal contracts totaling about 3.5 million words, comparing them with other types of writing, including movie scripts, newspaper articles, and academic papers.

That analysis revealed that legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences — a feature known as “center-embedding.” Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand.

“Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages,” Gibson says.

In a follow-up study published in 2023, the researchers found that legalese also makes documents more difficult for lawyers to understand. Lawyers tended to prefer plain English versions of documents, and they rated those versions to be just as enforceable as traditional legal documents.

“Lawyers also find legalese to be unwieldy and complicated,” Gibson says. “Lawyers don’t like it, laypeople don’t like it, so the point of this current paper was to try and figure out why they write documents this way.”

The researchers had a couple of hypotheses for why legalese is so prevalent. One was the “copy and edit hypothesis,” which suggests that legal documents begin with a simple premise, and then additional information and definitions are inserted into already existing sentences, creating complex center-embedded clauses.

“We thought it was plausible that what happens is you start with an initial draft that’s simple, and then later you think of all these other conditions that you want to include. And the idea is that once you’ve started, it’s much easier to center-embed that into the existing provision,” says Martinez, who is now a fellow and instructor at the University of Chicago Law School.

However, the findings ended up pointing toward a different hypothesis, the so-called “magic spell hypothesis.” Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say.

“In English culture, if you want to write something that’s a magic spell, people know that the way to do that is you put a lot of old-fashioned rhymes in there. We think maybe center-embedding is signaling legalese in the same way,” Gibson says.

In this study, the researchers asked about 200 non-lawyers (native speakers of English living in the United States, who were recruited through a crowdsourcing site called Prolific), to write two types of texts. In the first task, people were told to write laws prohibiting crimes such as drunk driving, burglary, arson, and drug trafficking. In the second task, they were asked to write stories about those crimes.

To test the copy and edit hypothesis, half of the participants were asked to add additional information after they wrote their initial law or story. The researchers found that all of the subjects wrote laws with center-embedded clauses, regardless of whether they wrote the law all at once or were told to write a draft and then add to it later. And, when they wrote stories related to those laws, they wrote in much plainer English, regardless of whether they had to add information later.

“When writing laws, they did a lot of center-embedding regardless of whether or not they had to edit it or write it from scratch. And in that narrative text, they did not use center-embedding in either case,” Martinez says.

In another set of experiments, about 80 participants were asked to write laws, as well as descriptions that would explain those laws to visitors from another country. In these experiments, participants again used center-embedding for their laws, but not for the descriptions of those laws.

The origins of legalese

Gibson’s lab is now investigating the origins of center-embedding in legal documents. Early American laws were based on British law, so the researchers plan to analyze British laws to see if they feature the same kind of grammatical construction. And going back much farther, they plan to analyze whether center-embedding is found in the Hammurabi Code, the earliest known set of laws, which dates to around 1750 BC.

“There may be just a stylistic way of writing from back then, and if it was seen as successful, people would use that style in other languages,” Gibson says. “I would guess that it’s an accidental property of how the laws were written the first time, but we don’t know that yet.”

The researchers hope that their work, which has identified specific aspects of legal language that make it more difficult to understand, will motivate lawmakers to try to make laws more comprehensible. Efforts to write legal documents in plainer language date to at least the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon declared that federal regulations should be written in “layman’s terms.” However, legal language has changed very little since that time.

“We have learned only very recently what it is that makes legal language so complicated, and therefore I am optimistic about being able to change it,” Gibson says. 

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Press mentions, fast company.

Researchers at MIT have uncovered a possible reason why legal documents can be so difficult to read, finding that “convoluted legalese often acts as a way to convey authority,” reports Joe Berkowitz for Fast Company . The researchers “tested whether nonlawyers would end up using legalese if asked to write legal documents,” explains Berkowitz. “In the end, all subjects wrote their laws with complex, center-embedded clauses.”

Researchers at MIT have found that the use of legalese in writing “to assert authority over those less versed in such language,” reports Noor Al-Sibai for Futurism . “By studying this cryptic take on the English language, the researchers are hoping to make legal documents much easier to read in the future,” explains Al-Sibai.

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