We are losing the "War On Drugs"

The United States of America is losing the so-called "War On Drugs."

It is a modern-day echo of the Prohibition Era, when the US tried to ban alcoholic beverages and instead created a permanent criminal class.To be sure, there was "Organized Crime" prior to Prohibition, but they didn't become Big Business until the opportunities of transporting and providing alcohol to the millions of Americans who didn't believe in Prohibition came along.

The first indicator of the failure of ProhibitionII is in the costs associated with it.  There is a clock that shows some of these costs at http://www.drugsense.org but even it can't tell the whole story.  What it shows are the declared direct costs to the Federal and State governments for this war.  It does not show the collateral costs in terms of lives and extra bureaucracy that are required to support the effort.  Also not included are the costs to the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security for equipment and personnel that support this war in addition to their "regular" tasks.

Almost all sectors of the economy are struggling with the results of the Great Recession, except the unrecorded Organized crime sector. The indications are that they have slowed only a little.

There is an easy way to cripple Organized Crime, cut the addiction rates, dramatically lower the number of deaths, and provide a huge economic windfall of income.

Legalize the recreational use of most of the banned drugs -- but require all providers and users to pay the governments for the privilege.  Many states regulate alcoholic beverages this way, requiring strict licensing for sales and distribution, or even running the retail outlets themselves. Do not allow the criminal entrepreneurs to simply "go legal" and to keep getting their cut, instead ensure that new people and businesses get first chance at the new opportunities.  The information on those who are already involved are mostly available to existing law enforcement agencies (even if not acted upon for "lack of evidence" that would hold up in court.)
Let the new commerce use the law enforcement indications "taint" an applicant and require a 1 year waiting period before granting any "tainted" applicant a license.

This frees up much of the excess expenses used the the current enforcement -- no new licensee checkups would require the use of SWAT teams or excessive force to keep track of their compliance. The new taxes collected would fund the enforcement with much left over to fund treatment programs for the users who are found to be overusing the drugs.  (Modern computer systems would be able to track usage and find the excess users, who would most likely be illegally re-distributing the drugs.)

Medical costs for handling overdose or poisoning cases would drop since the drugs would be of uniform quality and purity.  Care should be taken to see that the legal distribution channels cost less than any surviving illegal channels.  Privacy policies would be established to keep user identities safer then currently is the case.
Real drug education would occur in the schools to frankly explain the effect of the drugs and explaining that their use is available but discouraged for economic and mental health reasons.

Marijuana would be a special case.  There is less inherent danger in marijuana -- it does create a psychological dependence, but not a known physical addiction.  It is currently a "gateway" drug simply because the dealers have a major incentive to push other drugs on their clients.  Experience in California and Spain and The Netherlands have shown that casual marijuana users do not go on to harder drugs on their own.  Marijuana should probably be treated less strictly than most drugs in the same way beer and wine are treated less strictly than "hard liquor."  It would also be safer, in that there would be no contamination of the reefer with agents like PCP or Ketamine.

Finally, not all currently illegal recreational drugs would necessarily become available to all.  Certain drugs would still be more restricted or even be unavailable without special need being established. For example: Ecstasy is popular, but until it is better studied and relatively safe usage level are established it might not be freely available.  Also, the "date rape" drugs have no legitimate use at present and could remain banned.

Decriminalisation and regulation of the "hard" recreational drugs would have many benefits and put much of organized crime right out of business.  It would provide opportunities for new businesses and new revenue streams for the governments, and would result in less human suffering.

Think about it.