Drug prohibition: Just say no

I am grateful to Cape Girardeau lawyer John L. Cook for his op-ed piece against drug prohibition. It takes courage and clarity of vision. I have much respect for the Teen Challenge program and the individuals who are taking advantage of its help, as well as Dr. Jack Smart for directing the program. It takes gumption and faith.

In his rebuttal to Mr. Cook, Dr. Smart was, however, substantively wrong in his assertion that this country has never been without drug prohibition.

Most people have quaint recollections of legal substances containing opium at the turn of the last century. This from Wikipedia: "Until the early 20th century, laudanum was sold without a prescription and was a constituent of many patent medicines." The word "paregoric" should be familiar to older adults. Quick research yields convincing evidence that Coca-Cola did, truly, until 1903 contain cocaine, as did many wine preparations, home remedies, folk medicines and tonics. Chloroform, anyone?

There were addicts. "Between 150,000 and 200,000 opiate addicts lived in the United States in the late 19th century, and between two-thirds and three-quarters of these addicts were women" are statistics Wikipedia gleaned from a 1996 book by Dr. Stephen R. Kandall, "Substance and Shadow: A History of Women and Addiction in the United States -- 1850 to the Present" (Kandall 1996). The numbers, if you read the source material found at the National Institute of Health's website, are an admitted assumption on the author's part. He states, "Anecdotal reports of female opiate addiction were supported by the few available rudimentary epidemiologic studies of drug use in the United States. Accurate statistics, however, were hampered because women often concealed their drug use from friends and family."

Reason tells you it's true. Make addictive substances freely available and socially tolerated and there will surely be abuse and addiction and the attendant problems. Experience proves it. Prohibit addictive substances and you'll have the same -- plus crime, and de facto criminals.

The 22 million Americans, according to the government statistics cited by Dr. Smart, who used an illicit drug last month are criminals. That's about 8 percent of the population. By comparison, that's a percentage of the population 30 times greater than was addicted to opiates when they were available, legal and cheap. I'll grant you, these numbers are squishy, but I hope they make the point. Opiates were legal in 1900, and to the best estimates of someone who researched it, less than three-tenths of one percent of the population was addicted. I'll grant you, also, that only a tiny fraction of the 22 million illicit drug users today are addicts. There could easily be more people addicted to legal drugs.

It was a serpentine path that led us to where we are. It didn't come easy reading into the Constitution the federal government's right to criminalize drugs. It won't be easy getting rid of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act of 1914. States have had fits trying to keep the feds out of medical marijuana, even when the people have voted to allow it. I'm talking federal involvement, and I chide both Democrats and Republicans. They've had control for a hundred years. Try Libertarians.

The argument was once about the harm drug users did to themselves and their families. Thanks to prohibition, we can now add money and power.

Legalize drugs. There will be addicts. They will make themselves and their families miserable. They will need help. They won't, however, need to steal to supply their habits, or, if they do, it won't be much. Legal drugs are cheap. Prohibition makes them expensive. Prohibition causes violence here in the United States and everywhere the money that buys drugs goes. It supports drug lords in Mexico and terrorists in Afghanistan. It costs us a fortune to catch people and another to cage them. It fosters corruption and intimidation of police forces and the courts. Prohibition is costing us our civil liberties as our right to be free in our persons and papers and homes continues to be abrogated in a futile pursuit of an unattainable goal.

Greg Tlapek of Cape Girardeau is the executive director of the Missouri Libertarian Party.