Connecting Voices Against Drug Prohibition
Concrete Steps Forward
Plans for Ending the Prohibition Blunder
Specific Plans (Ours and Yours)
Crafting Excellent Proposals for Effective Drug Regulation Through Legalization
Generations of politicians have shown it’s easy in the extreme to spout drug control measures that are simple-minded, arrogant, and deadly wrong. And it’s not much harder to flippantly announce one doesn’t support the War on Drugs.
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One factor contributing mightily to the nightmare of America’s doomed but resilient War on Drugs is the real work required by crafting good proposals on how to eliminate it and replace it with effective drug control.
We challenge every concerned person and group to take up this challenge. Do the hard work and submit a plan to regulate by legalization.
So, we challenge every concerned person and group to take up this challenge. Do the hard work and submit a plan to regulate by legalization.
Below is our current proposal. Who can take up this challenge and go beyond? With authors’ permission, we’ll post and discuss the best proposals. The only rule is that the submission must be under 1,000 words.
Preface to Charlie and Barb Asher's Proposed Plan for Effective Regulation of Drugs Via Legalization
We can preview our proposal by saying it relies on the wisdom of careful thinkers who’ve recommended that in America the federal government (1) step back from any involvement in drug control through the criminal laws and (2) leave to each of the states to decide to what extent, if at all, to continue a system of Drug Prohibition or to abandon that in favor of some system of regulation through legalization.
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This federalist solution owes its roots in part to an eloquent early proponent, the late United States District Judge Whitman Knapp. A highly respected Nixon appointee to the federal bench, Judge Knapp was an uncommonly thoughtful commentator on the carnage he saw unfolding from the War on Drugs. Millions of lives could have been saved if just these two of his observations had been heeded, one on the advantages of local control of such a complicated region-specific issue and another on the wisdom of capitalizing on the successful end to alcohol prohibition via relegating alcohol control to the states.
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“The variety, complexity, and importance of these questions make it exceedingly clear that the federal government has no business being involved in any of them. What might be a hopeful solution in New York could be a disaster in Idaho, and only state legislatures and city governments, not Congress, can pass laws tailored to local needs.”
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“What did the nation do when it decided to rid itself of the catastrophes spawned by Alcohol Prohibition? It adopted the 21st Amendment, which excluded the federal government from any role in regulation of alcoholic beverages.”
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By far, more Americans have died in the War on Drugs than in all our other wars combined—and the rate of death is now worse than ever.
To say the least, it’s time to do the hard work of reversing this terrible blunder.
Both quotes from United States District Judge Whitman Knapp, “It Is Time to Dethrone the Drug Czar,” Orange County Register, May 11, 1993, quoted in Judge James P. Gray, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed, Temple University press, Philadelphia (2001), p. 234.
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Find out more about Charlie and Barb Asher on the About page.
