Drug Legalization: Myths and Misconceptions
Exerpts from the US Dept. of Justice, 1994
Proponents of drug legalization argue that legalizing drugs would
decrease addiction rates for two reasons. First, they maintain, people use
drugs because they are illegal - that is, people get a thrill breaking a social
taboo. Legalize drugs and the incentive to take them will go away. Second,
proponents of legalization argue that if drugs were legalized, we could spend
the money that we presently spend on the criminal justice system on treatment
of addicts...
...Let us examine addiction specific to two drugs: cocaine
and marijuana. Although rough, estimates suggest that there are between 650,000
and 2.4 million cocaine addicts in the United States. "Cocaine is a much more
addictive drug than alcohol. If cocaine were legally available the number of
cocaine abusers would probably rise to...perhaps 20-25million." Mitchell
Rosenthal, President of the Phoenix House drug-rehabilitation program states
that cheap available drugs would increase addiction; only 10% of drinkers
become hooked, while an estimated 75% of regular drug (crack) users could
become addicts. Scientific studies agree, noting that when given unlimited
access to cocaine, laboratory animals will consume increasingly greater amounts
until they die. That cocaine is harmful to one's health likely will come as a
surprise to no one. Dr. Frank H. Gawin, director of stimulant abuse, treatment
and research at Yale University concludes that cocaine causes depression,
paranoia, and "violent psychotic behavior." What is worse, there is presently
no effective, permanent treatment for cocaine addiction.
Almost everyone
would agree that cocaine is a dangerous, addictive drug, but many would be
surprised to find that the same is true of marijuana. Although it is very
difficult to determine the precise number of marijuana users and addicts in the
United States, one fact is clear: marijuana has become much more potent over
the last twenty years. Cannabis delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as
"THC," is the active ingredient in marijuana and other cannabis such as
hashish. The THC content in marijuana during the days of Woodstock was
something less than 1%. In 1974, the average THC content of illicit marijuana
was 0. 36% and by 1984 had increased to 4.40%. In 1992 in Alaska, marijuana was
discovered that had a THC content of 29.86%. Now stop and think about that for
a minute. Today's marijuana may be between thirty to sixty times as potent as
were the joints of the 1960's.
This observation gives one pause when we
realize that THC is both dangerous and habit-forming. Marinol, a
prescription drug that
is very occasionally used in the treatment of nausea associated with
chemotherapy, is chemically synthesized THC. Most people are familiar with the
information sheets that come with prescription drugs - the pieces of paper that
detail the indications and usage of the drug in question, its potential
side-effects, its chemical composition, etc. The information sheet that comes
with Marinol states verbatim, "MARINOL is highly abusable and can produce both
physical and psychological dependence .... Patients receiving MARINOL should be
closely observed." The company that produces Marinol goes on to explain that
its THC may cause "changes in mood ... decrements in cognitive performance and
memory, a decreased ability to control drives and impulses [and] . . . a
full-blown picture of psychosis (psychotic organic brain syndrome) may occur in
patients receiving doses within the lower portion of the therapeutic
range."
Such warnings should not surprise the scientists who have for
many years maintained that the THC contained in marijuana is dangerous. First,
in the late 1960's Dr. Robert Heath, then chairman of the Department of
Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane Medical School, found that marijuana affects
brain waves and destroys brain cells. Second, a study conducted by Dr. Ethel
Sassenrath at the University of California at Davis between 1974 and 1978 found
that THC increased the rate of fetal loss (in utero, fetal death) in monkeys by
over 300%, while at the same time decreasing the birth weights in those babies
born alive. Third, a study by Dr. Susan Dalterio, at the University of Texas
found that marijuana decreased testosterone and impaired sexual development in
male mice. Finally, a study by Dr. Albert Munson found that injections of THC
suppressed the immune systems of mice and made them 96 times more susceptible
to the herpes virus.
Dr. Charles R. Schuster, former Director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse said, "The fact that there are over 77,000
admissions a year to treatment programs for marijuana use and that annually
almost 8,000 persons require emergency hospital care for marijuana use is
sufficient evidence of the drugs dangerousness"
Clearly, drugs such as
cocaine and marijuana are both addictive and dangerous. The legalizers likely
would admit this, but counter by saying that if we legalized them we would have
less of a problem. This is untrue.
Recall from above that legalizers
claim that people use and become addicted to drugs because of the excitement of
breaking the law - it is the fact that drugs are illegal that causes people to
try them. The data disagree. Robert E. Peterson, Former Deputy Attorney General
of Pennsylvania notes, "70% of high school students in New Jersey and about 60%
of the students in California said that fear of getting in trouble with the law
constituted a major reason not to use drugs."
The legalizers' argument
that we should legalize drugs and spend the money we now spend on criminal
prosecution on treatment and rehabilitation also fails. Both proponents and
opponents of legalization are in agreement that legalization almost certainly
would decrease the price of drugs as they became more available. However, basic
economic theory states that as the price of a commodity declines, demand for
the commodity will increase. But whereas the reverse usually also is true
(increase price and demand decreases), it is not so with addictive substances.
That is, drop the price of a gram of cocaine by 50%, and you will see an
increase in use as demand for the product increases. Increase the price of
cocaine by 50%, and you will not see an equal decrease in demand because
addicts will pay the price to sustain their
addictions. In technical
economic terms, the demand for addictive drugs is elastic with respect to price
declines, but inelastic with respect to price increases.
Expert opinion
supports this hypothesis. Dr. Herbert D. Kleber of the Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse, Columbia University, suggests that legalization of cocaine
would result in a five- to six-fold increase in cocaine use. Dr. Robert DuPont,
former director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse agrees, stating that
legalization would increase the number of users of cocaine and marijuana to
between fifty and sixty million, and the number of heroin users to around ten
million. Dr. DuPont concludes that when one takes into account the health
effects of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, legalization could result in between
100,000 and 500,000 drug induced deaths each year. Further, you cannot legalize
cocaine and control the crack epidemic, for users could easily turn the former
into the latter.
History also supports the fact that legalization would
increase addiction rates. When opium was legal in the United States at the turn
of the century, we had proportionately between two and three times the number
of addicts than we do presently. Furthermore, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Professor
of Pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine, notes that Alaska
and Oregon, the states that traditionally have had the most lenient drug laws,
also have the highest marijuana addiction rates in the United States double the
national average...
...In short, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana are
dangerous and highly addictive substances. Scholarly opinion, historical
evidence, and common sense suggest that if these drugs are legalized, then the
rates of addiction will skyrocket...
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