Dan Johnson? Are we sure this isn't Don Johnson, wanting his Ferrari and his leisure suit back?

(Believe it or not, cocaine is still a thing in South Florida. But no where else that I know of.)

You know how you stop it -- how you make the bottom fall right out of the illegal coke trade? You legalize cocaine.

Making cocaine legal in the US will not solve all the problems engendered by it. California passed Prop 47, decriminalizing small amounts of illegal drugs, and is now plagued by a wave of petty crime as addicts break into cars and steal packages in an effort to obtain money for their next fix.

And legalization may prove more difficult than the wide-eyed legalization advocates think - the source for cocaine, the coca leaf, was banned by UN convention in 1961 and remains banned today.

I gotcher liquid cocaine right here:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/liquid-cocaine-and-firecracker-shots-759724

I've had the first entry. It is remarkably smooth and goes down well. Which is why it can be dangerous. One, you're good. Two, you're OK. Three? you're face down in an alleyway with no clothes on.

Here in Houston cocaine is big with bar tenders (really perks you up after pushy drunks want you to take shots with them). It is also big in construction and with certain illegal immigrant groups. But those are professional reasons. There isn't a lot of recreational usage.

Fun factoid: After age 40, a dose of recreational coke doubles your probability of a heart attack for 24 hours.

I can understand how the war on drugs has not worked, not one little bit. Here in Canada we are legalizing cannabis for recreational use. I think it will work out just fine. As far as legalizing hard drugs, very addictive drugs, I wonder where advocates think the problems using these substances will go? People will still get addicted, and still turn to crime to fund their habit. They will be no more willing to get help then when it was illegal, and rehab will not work any better. It is like proponents of legalizing all drugs think this will cause hard core addicts to become reasonable, recreational users. Or those that use it, will not become addicted and turn to a life of crime.

As far as legalizing hard drugs, very addictive drugs, I wonder where advocates think the problems using these substances will go?

In all the years of the drug war we have jailed millions at the cost of hundreds of millions, seized billions in cash drugs and other property, spent tens of millions to send mercenaries to foreign countries and burn fields, and spent tens of millions in direct bribes to drug cartels and foreign government to fuck with the production of their rivals.

Despite inflicting a real cost of several billions of dollars worth of damage to the drug trade drugs are cheaper and more plentiful than ever.

Imagine how much cheaper still they would be without that cost inflicted? How much cheaper still on top of that if it were all not only legal but run by major pharmaceutical companies?

Where will the problem go? Well I dont suggest merely legalizing hard drugs, I suggest subsiding them.

Give them away for free. Every city of a certain size would have a building, anyone wanting drugs can come on down and get as much of what they want, and they can leave once they are able to do so under their own power, or die.

Whichever. Seems to me the problem would go away really really fast

I have reservations about legalizing cocaine.

When it comes to legalizing Mary-Jane, I have no issues with that. Potheads are chill. When they run out of pot, they simply remain chill people and wait until they can afford more.

Crackheads are another matter. When they run out, they don't wait until the next paycheck. They bash you over the head and take your money to buy more.

You're simply talking about two different types of addiction. Potheads, in general, are not dangerous. Cokeheads are.

Prohibition has never worked to keep the banned substance out of the hands (and bloodstream) of those who want it.

But it has helped corrupt (I mean, corrupt more than is necessary to hold the "job") police and other government welfare junkies. It has also worked really well to cause suppliers to come up with more concentrated substances. And has worked great if the goal is to create gang violence as bad people work really hard to secure their place in the market.

But people are going to keep doing more of it because it is so addictive... prohibition, I mean.

Again the ludicrous notion that making something more available will reduce its use.

So much for the word, "science" in this blog.

The author is correct to address users as the problem. It is the demand by users that drives everything. With weed, the tittering at disobeying Daddy - the law - is offered as an excuse for enabling vast criminal enterprises ahead of changing the law. It is then easy to thumb your nose at any other law, tell any other lies to friends, family and police in order to protect drug use. Yes, it happens with alcohol. Be sure to mention the tens of thousands of direct and indirect deaths and crimes that continued after its legalization.

Some of your neighbors seeking to drink will NOT behave responsibly, either before or after becoming intoxicated. What will they do when addicted to coke/crack? Unwind with the needle/line/pipe after a hard day's work?

What next? Meth?

I can show you a controlled environment where the entire working population is required to remain drug-free. For-cause and periodic testing is present. In that population, I can show you thousands of people with steady jobs and personal worth in the six- and seven-figure range. Their choice to avoid drugs makes the contrast between them and those who decide otherwise - which occurs in that population - obvious. Wow, what a punishment, to never have to worry about Uncle Tommy the officer coming over for BBQ, or explaining criminal charges or work absences to a bank or yet another menial employer. The contrast is as vivid as that between an honest man and a thief: "Damn, son, was what you did worth losing your job?"

That happens more easily with addictive substances. You all knew that. If you are honest, you'll admit wouldn't hire the pothead, the alcoholic, the crackhead, the methhead, the cokehead, and you know these are derogatory terms; in general these are also users of people. You don't want your son or daughter to associate with someone for whom drugs are important, either.

Yeah, in a libertarian's paradise, everything would be available all the time and nobody would abuse them. In practice, crimes really occur before laws can be enforced, and the very existence of law enforcement agencies is testament to the inability of a major fraction of the public to behave responsibly. It's an ugly truth that won't go away. Rationalize away.

Now. Go ask Carroll O'Connor about cocaine.

"is now plagued by a wave of petty crime as addicts break into cars and steal packages in an effort to obtain money for their next fix."

That's because decriminalization of the demand side isn't full legalization of the entire marketplace. So CA increased demand, and continued to interdict supply, raising the price and thus the need for users to criminally fund their use.

"It is like proponents of legalizing all drugs think this will cause hard core addicts to become reasonable, recreational users."

No, we don't. We think that without legal restrictions, they will use to the extent that it kills them, and reduce the incidence of the addiction gene.

"They bash you over the head and take your money to buy more."

When they try, you shoot them.

"Again the ludicrous notion that making something more available will reduce its use."

In the short term, it will increase its use, but increasing its use increases the mortality of those inclined to use, which, in the long run, reduces overall use.

Radwaste, you're offering the tired argument that, if drugs were legal, everyone would use them, to which the simple response is, would you? Newsflash - everyone who wants to use drugs is using them, despite the prohibition you hold so dear. Over the last 100 years, usage has generally correlated positively to interdiction efforts. The data contradicts your conclusions.

Oh yes, about alcohol? The degree to which alcohol sales in a state are dominated by cheap, higher proof products correlates strongly with the state's overall level of regulation. In other words, in highly regulated states sales skew more heavily to MD 20/20 and in less regulated states they skew more toward $50/bottle wines with one third the alcohol content.

That's because decriminalization of the demand side isn't full legalization of the entire marketplace. So CA increased demand, and continued to interdict supply, raising the price and thus the need for users to criminally fund their use. ~ bw1 at August 16, 2018 10:38 PM

Addicts don't usually hold down steady jobs; some do, others can't. By default, the ones that can't, or don't want to, hold down a job will "criminally fund their use," even with legalized drugs.

The reason the Prop 47 addicts, the ones committing petty crimes, are not hauled off to jail is that their possession of drugs is no longer a criminal act. So, they're left to their own devices, which include petty crimes to fund their habit. If caught in the act of committing a petty crime, they're hauled off to court, fined, and released, in accordance with the penalty for the petty crime they were caught committing.

...but increasing its use increases the mortality of those inclined to use, which, in the long run, reduces overall use. ~ bw1 at August 16, 2018 10:38 PM

We think that without legal restrictions, they will use to the extent that it kills them, and reduce the incidence of the addiction gene. ~ bw1 at August 16, 2018 10:38 PM

So, you'd legalize drugs to encourage drug users to die? And you think every other advocate of legalizing drugs feels the same way?

Um, no.

I'm an advocate of legalizing drugs, to some extent. My reasoning is that, with interdiction being our main focus, we've created a quasi-police state with no-knock warrants and asset forfeiture, up-armed our police forces with military assets, and spent billions of dollars to little effect.

We've focused on the supply side of the drug war. If we were serious about stopping drugs, we'd also focus on the demand side. But no one wants to see suburban Junior sent off to PMITA prison for holding a small of illegal drug. So, Junior "has a disease," while his supplier is a "social parasite preying on weakness." The former goes to rehab while the latter goes to an overcrowded PMITA prison.

Focusing our main efforts on rehabilitation and education instead of enforcement and interdiction may not yield significantly lower usage, but it will likely cost less. In addition, taxes can be collected on the entire endeavor.

Junior will still be an addict, but Senior can stop worrying that the sheriff is going to bust through the door after he's had his nightly brandy and his reflexes are slower, shoot him when an officer misinterprets his reaction, and seize his house from his widow.

There will always be costs to legalization. Legalization will take away a career choice(?) for young entrepreneurs in the 'hood to be "independent pharmaceutical representatives," leaving an unemployable bottom class idled. People will still overdose.

Labelling, taxation, and quality control requirements will make some drugs financially untenable as legal products, leaving their manufacture and distribution to less-than-legal sources with its attendant problems. Violence will still be the dispute resolution method of choice for those operating outside the law.

And what do we do with overdoses? Leave them to die on the street? After all, leaving them to die on the curb will "reduce overall usage" and "reduce the incidence of the addiction gene." Of course, then we'll have dead bodies littering our streets, like some plague-ridden Third World city.

Give them away for free. Every city of a certain size would have a building, anyone wanting drugs can come on down and get as much of what they want, and they can leave once they are able to do so under their own power, or die. ~ lujlp at August 15, 2018 2:21 PM

Do you really think you can convince hardworking Americans to fund Junior's drug habit?

And where will the government get the drugs it gives away? Do you really want the government to be in the drug manufacturing business? Or buying its drugs from disreputable sources, and then sued by the parents of a user who gets a bad batch?

Remember, non-medical or non-scientific use of coca leaf has been banned by the UN since 1961, so the costs of international distribution will still be high.

You'd have to grow the coca leaf on US territory and there are only a few spots in the US where it can be grown - and in those only with significant effort. So, you'd have to set up a climate-controlled growing industry.

The Stepan Corporation actually attempted to grow coca in the US in the '60s, through an arrangement with Coca-Cola and the University of Hawaii. Coca-Cola has a federal exemption to use denatured coca leaf extract. The entire crop was destroyed by a Hawaiian crop fungus against which the coca plant had no defenses.

Do you really think hardworking Americans should fund Junior's drug habit, or are you joining bw1 in advocating solutions that will encourage users to die?

Isn't there synthetic cocaine, Conan? Most drug users aren't that picky about all natural ingredients. So actually growing coca in the US isn't much of an impediment.

Like you I am for some legalization for two reasons.

One, interdiction has had a negligible effect on usage. A lot of money is being spent to little or no effect. As Rad likes to say, an addict will do anything for that next fix.

Two, I view the social costs of the interdiction effort as more costly than the social cost of drug addicts. When the cops regularly rob anyone with significant cash on them under the excuse it could be used to buy drugs it is a problem. Police pawing through people's garbage trying to find evidence of drug use is also a problem. The police state required to interdict drugs has costs far greater than just the monetary one. And the money is quite expensive as well.

As for the cheap drug argument bw1 makes, that isn't how any legalization effort has turned out. All the other regulations and taxes people have to follow to produce a product cost far too much. Legal drugs are pretty much guaranteed to cost more than illegal ones. After all we still have moonshine and black market cigarettes.

Spending a literal trillions of dollars in effort hasnt stopped Jr from doing drugs

So yes legalize it and let him die, we dod it with sugar, booze, & tobacco and that takes decades to kill you, why not meth and heroin?

So yes legalize it and let him die, we dod it with sugar, booze, & tobacco and that takes decades to kill you, why not meth and heroin. ~ lujlp at August 17, 2018 6:49 PM

Ever watch a family member die slowly from an addiction? I have. It's not pretty. And it's not something you can crow self-righteously about. But go ahead and tell me how we should encourage the addicts to die and how we should feel good about doing so.

I have too Conan. Several. Friends as well. But I also realize there is nothing I can do to stop it. Sometimes life is tragic.

Never said we should encourage or feel good about it

Just accept the reality that interdiction and prohibition rarely stops it and cost far more to everyone else

How much should society suffer to draw out the train wreck, how much less would you family have suffered if your member had died relatively quickly?

FYI my family tree is so riddled with addicts I've never so much a tasted a wine cooler and until hospitalization avoided all pain killers, and if it werent for a pathological need to be in control of myself, plus being in a locked down medical barracks for months after my surgery I probably would have been dead of an overdose within a year of my discharge

This week marks 14 years since I had part of my lung cut out and there are still days when all I can think about is how good it felt to have the morphine crush my capacity to think or feel despite the physical pain I was in

There is virtually nothing you can do to help addict who dont want it

The cheaper solution is to cut your losses

Sometimes life is tragic. ~ Ben at August 19, 2018 10:42 AM

Sometimes it is.

Just accept the reality that interdiction and prohibition rarely stops it and cost far more to everyone else ~ lujlp at August 19, 2018 11:04 AM

I've accepted that reality; long ago. We've spent billions and, instead of stopping drugs, we've made them more popular than ever. Everybody wants to be a rebel.

You've got Cheech and Chong, That '70s Show,, Harold and Kumar, the Wayans brothers, and any number of other vehicles Hollywood has used to show illegal drug use as the realm of the cool kids.

Now that it's legal in several states, including California, will drug use still be used to show a character is "cool," a rebel? Or will it join smoking and drinking to excess on the ash heap of once cool behavioral tropes?

There is virtually nothing you can do to help addict who dont want it ~ lujlp at August 19, 2018 11:04 AM

Nope. However, writing them off from the beginning as a cheap solution to "cut your losses" is kinda callous. I'd like to think that we, as a society, can do better than that.

I'd like to think that we, as a society, can do better than that.

Not according to our society's bank balance

Like Lujlp I'm gonna say you are an optimist Conan.

Lots of drug users quit. Lots of them get better and put their lives back together. But the one universal truth is there is nothing anyone else can do. They have to do it themselves. You can't ease them into it. You can't force them. Some may never quit. Rehab does nothing.

The only successful path I've seen is to write them off until they decide to change their ways. And it isn't a cheap solution. It is a very painful one if you actually care about the person. But it is the only effective one I've seen.

"And you think every other advocate of legalizing drugs feels the same way?"

No. only the practical ones. I've spoken to several cops who do not want to carry narcan. After reviving the same people month after month, they tend to label cases where the victim can still be revived as "underdoses," as if to say, if you're going to kill yourself, get it right.

"Legalization will take away a career choice(?) for young entrepreneurs in the 'hood to be "independent pharmaceutical representatives," leaving an unemployable bottom class idled."

and create plenty of jobs in the legitimate pipeline. They're building a medical marijuana productin facility in our town - lots of entry level jobs.

"People will still overdose."

Yes. and people will still drink themselves to death, and eat junk and be couch potatoes so they die of heart disease and diabetes, and smoke themselves to death on tobacco, etc. It's a fallen world, and there are plenty of problems in it to solve that don't involve freely chosen self-harm on which I'd rather expend my energy and concern.

"Labelling, taxation, and quality control requirements will make some drugs financially untenable as legal products,"

Right, because one of the biggest problems in our country is all the people who can't afford Miller Lite and Ripple. If there's one thing capitalism has proven it can do effectively, it's putting regulated, taxed, legal vices in the hands of the least productive members of society.

"And what do we do with overdoses? Leave them to die on the street?"

The same thing we do with them now. A day doesn't go by without the media talking about how it's an epidemic, and yet I don't see streets littered with dead bodies.

"After all we still have moonshine and black market cigarettes."

The former exists only at novelty levels, while InBev churns out enough cheap legal beer to float the sixth fleet daily, and the latter consists primarily of illegal diversion from less regulated states to more regulated states.

"Ever watch a family member die slowly from an addiction? ...It's not pretty."

Ever watch a smoker die of emphysema, or a drunk from cirrhosis? It's not pretty either.

"But go ahead and tell me how we should encourage the addicts to die and how we should feel good about doing so."

NO ONE said anything about encouraging or feeling good about it. But I do believe that they have a property interest and rights to their own lives, including the autonomy to dispose of same as they see fit. Like I said, there are more tractible problems over which to lose sleep.

Using these drugs is, in my opinion, farm-animal-stupid, but if I had the power to outlaw every choice I think is farm-animal stupid, believe me, you would not want to live in that world. Few would.

You have an inalienable right to choose to put whatever you want in your own body, be it drugs, alcohol, tobacco, transfats, high fructose corn syrup, foie gras, subcutaneous ink, or the appendages of other adults' bodies (with their consent.) It is the height of hypocrissy to carve out exceptions to that right for subsets of that which you find offensive.