- Joined
- May 21, 2005
- Messages
- 9,168
- Reaction score
- 9,299
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
Like I said, there is no evidence that prohibition has any effect on lowering the rate of drug use, and there is no evidence that legalization of any drug would lead to an increase in the use of that drug. If you know of any such evidence, please post it, and then let these guys know:Legalization means increased availability which means increased usage and increased users.
World Health Organization said:“The U.S., which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use.”
The World Health Organization Documents Failure of U.S. Drug Policies
CATO Institute said:"Some supporters of drug prohibition claim that its benefits are undeniable and self-evident. Their main assumption is that without prohibition drug use would skyrocket, with disastrous results. But there is little evidence for this commonly held belief. In fact, in the few cases where empirical evidence does exist it lends little support to the prediction of soaring drug use. For example, in two places in the Western world where use of small amounts of marijuana is legal--the Netherlands and Alaska--the rate of marijuana consumption is arguably lower than in the continental United States, where marijuana is banned. In 1982, 6.3 percent of American high school seniors smoked marijuana daily, but only 4 percent did so in Alaska. In 1985, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands the rate was only 0.5 percent.[6] These are hardly controlled comparisons--no such comparisons exist--but the numbers that are available do not bear out the drastic scenario portrayed by supporters of continued prohibition."
Thinking about Drug Legalization | James Ostrowski | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis
Institute of Medicine said:Sanctions against drug use are a preeminent feature of policy on illegal drugs, yet very little is known about the actual effects of these sanctions on drug use (independent of the effects of other social controls).
Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us
The empirical literature bearing on the declarative effects of legal sanctions is scant, mainly because it is so difficult to distinguish these effects from deterrent effects or to disentangle the effects of preexisting social norms and informal controls from the declarative effects of formally prescribed sanctions. In one of a series of studies investigating this issue, Grasmick et al. (1991) showed that an antilittering campaign increased the likelihood of compliance because people felt that violating the norm would be an occasion for shame or embarrassment. Similarly, substantial increases in seat belt use and child restraint after enactment of mandatory legal requirements appear to be attributable primarily to declarative effects (in this case, probably a pedagogical effect) rather than deterrence (Institute of Medicine, 1999). (Interestingly, proponents of so-called primary enforcement of seat belt laws—allowing a penalty for failing to wear a seat belt even if the driver has committed no other violation—argue that an increase in the deterrent threat is now needed to increase the rate of seat belt wearing beyond current levels.) No studies have successfully isolated the declarative effects of sanctions against use of illegal drugs from their deterrent effects.
Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us