Pubdate: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-robberson_25edi.State.Edition1.2065500.html Copyright: 2009 The Dallas Morning News, Inc. Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 Author: Tod Robberson Note: Tod Robberson is an editorial writer for The Dallas Morning News. This column reflects his personal opinion. IS IT TIME TO LEGALIZE? There are questions to answer before we do anything, says Tod Robberson Whenever a prominent world leader or tycoon lends his voice to the call for drug legalization, my immediate instinct is to think, "Wow, if this smart guy supports legalization, then it's time to give this some serious thought." We're all looking for better solutions because, let's face it, the war on drugs isn't working. The annual cultivation figures from Colombia and Afghanistan suggest we're no better off today than we were a decade ago, despite billions of dollars in eradication expenditures. It's also hard to argue with those who contend that Prohibition did little to halt alcohol use but certainly fueled a surge in violent organized crime. Today, the carnage in Mexico's biggest border towns makes Al Capone look like Mother Teresa. Take away the criminal punishment for drugs and the violence will disappear, legalization supporters argue. Tax drug consumption, and governments will get rich rather than spend all their money fighting traffickers and imprisoning users. It all sounds so simple, so logical. And so unworkable. What I've yet to hear is a coherent legalization strategy that answers the following questions: First, what do we do about the major drug cartels? We should be clear that no one is talking about legalizing the unrestricted production and sale of drugs. If cartels continue smuggling drugs to evade taxes or to undercut legal sellers, they will continue to be prosecuted. Does anyone think the criminal networks entrenched in Colombia, Mexico, Russia and Afghanistan will magically disappear because drug use is legalized? Prosecution of illegal drug smugglers and traffickers must continue, but I have yet to hear a good explanation of how the fight against these powerful cartels and militias would change under legalization. Second, what about underage drug users? Given that 21 is the minimum drinking age, it's unlikely that the age for legalized drug use would be more lenient. Federal statistics show that the 12-25 age group is, by far, the one most likely to abuse drugs. Law enforcers would remain at least as busy, if not more so, if drug use were legalized because access to marijuana and harder drugs would jump dramatically for the under-21 crowd. Which leads to my third question: How do we deal with addiction rates? The nation already spends about $96 billion a year dealing with the adverse health effects of our legal nicotine-delivery system, cigarettes. We lose another $97 billion in lost productivity from smoking. Can we afford the billions more we will spend treating addicts, coping with lower productivity and paying for the untold health effects of legalized drug use? Supporters of legalization will no doubt respond: Kids already have easy access to drugs, so what's the difference whether they're legal or not? The amount of money we'd save from interdiction and enforcement would more than offset the costs of addiction treatment. Plus, if you put a high enough tax on it, legalization would wind up being a financial windfall for the government. I don't doubt that these arguments are at least partially valid, but they are, at best, theories of how the system would work. In the non-theoretical real world of today, a network of criminality has developed around this multibillion-dollar industry. It's one that cannot be easily dismantled or wished away. I concede that many big international problems would be significantly diminished if drug use were legalized. What we can't predict are the many more, possibly worse, problems could quickly fill the vacuum.