I'm going to take an uncharacteristically cautious approach.
Okay. Yes, alcohol is far reaching. We've all had a few too many drinks and used it as an escape, it destroys families, friendships and lives sometimes; but it doesn't follow that we should even bring prohibition into the picture. Alcohol, by it's nature, is the 'big' drug; it is easily induced, has minimal side effects in small doses and can facilitate extremely positive social interaction and encourage friends to have a laugh together. On the flipside, overindulgence is... well... not fun. The next day is ruined... who wants a hangover? Not to mention the future liver failures and other health complications that come from abusing it. Alcohol is, by it's very nature, always going to be the drug that everyone uses and everyone wants to use.
Now, illicit drugs have a far different effect and are used for far different reasons. Pot is used for some reason, never really understood why... it just never worked for me. It too is far reaching simply because of the ease of inducing and (of course) the effects (apparently mostly good and not that bad in both the short and long terms).
In the same regard, ectasy is a quick and easy fix... but it doesnt NEED to be dangerous. It can be dangerous because drug dealers do not care about who takes their drugs due to the wholly inelastic demand curve. People will still want to take their drug of choice regardless of what happened to their friend, they may change suppliers but in the end most drugs are likely to be manufactured by the same guys (e.g. Cocaine [anyone see foreign correspondant last night? whoa!]). Person X thinks it won't happen to them because they're careful or they think they'd know better if they were faced with a choice between ectasy that has been cut with other things and the real deal.
Using Ectasy as my case study, we would see a number of things happen if the government legalised it:
- quality would increase. It would. Chemists would be allowed to pursue this industry as a legal profession. You'd get the greatest minds in science (as soon as it was widely accepted) working to produce the highest quality fix at the lowest cost. Noone would buy the black & gold or home brand varieties, but the Coca-Cola of the E industry would be hugely successful.
- Costs would decrease. What's that? DECREASE? What're you talking about?! It's true. Sure, demand is high and relatively inelastic but supply would likely rise to unprecedented levels. Drugs cost so much because they're illicit, by their very nature they must cost more due to the risks involved. There is not likely to be any risk of junkies robbing stores.
- Safety and long term effects of drugs would gradually fall as chemists (and businesses) undertake legitimate research into how they could prevent damage to their consumers. Businesses want their consumers alive to spend more money and they want them to do so without fear of hurting themselves.
- More people may give certain drugs 'a try' but government would logically have to insist that the substances be non-addictive so there should be no long term problems associated with more experimentation.
- Crime would fall. This is a given as it has been discussed to my satisfaction previously, I won't repeat what others have already rightly said. (e.g. Prohibition in America)
Ask yourself the question 'If drugs were legalised, would you try more drugs or if you already do, would you take more?'
I don't think we should legalise them though. It's a major risk. While I have set out a whole bunch of what I think are likely scenarios, they're merely my opinion. Such legislation would have to be the fruit of years (or even decades) of market research by politicians, scientists and statisticians. It's clear that if we legalised them and then said "hang on! this isn't working the way we expected it to (as in my model), lets pull the plug and criminalise everything again!" then there would be a sharp rise in criminal activity as in the prohibition era (once all the business' inventories have been sold off). Such a decision is a leap of faith and cannot be taken lightly as it is a path that you cannot easily go back on and it could just as easily have very negative effects on Australia as distinct from places like the Netherlands if simply because we are a different society with different beliefs and very different people.
