Legalize all recreational substances for those 18 and over and levy a nominal tax on them which is directed towards commercial inspection, regulation, factual drug education, research into addiction, and medical treatment for addicts.
Add severe penalties for those who drive or operate equipment under the influence, endangering others.
We do far, far more damage with our insane drug policy than the drugs themselves do.
Any recreational drug that is less destructive than alcohol and tobacco should be treated exactly the same as them, legally and regulatorially speaking.
I want to add a little to my previous post. The purpose of the FDA would be to inspect the drug manufacturing and distribution process, make sure that the purity is consistent, that there are no harmful chemicals mixed with the drugs, etc. It would basically have the same function it does now for prescription drugs.
Also, the taxes I envision would be about 20 to 25%. I think this is reasonable for covering added health care costs and other government services that drug users will take advantage of without driving prices so high that a black market remains. I once read a paper by an economics major (I wish I remembered where it was) who hypothesized how much drug prices would fall if they were made legal. I don’t remember how much it was, but it was a small fraction for all drugs. I think heroin would be about 1/8 the present cost. So even with my taxes, it would be a hell of a lot easier to be an addict and manage to pay for your addiction with a normal job.
Legalize them all, but mandate public beatings in the town square for impaired driving.
thinks about legal crystal meth and PCP
Hmm. I realize that my reluctance is a visceral reaction, but it’s there. Otherwise, it seems the main question going among those who’ve responded right now is whether there’s any taxation or regulation.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean you should necessarily expect a big increase in use. I think there’s a good chance you’d see meth use drop quite a bit, in fact, if cocaine were a readily available alternative (which it tends not to be in the places where meth is most popular).
Right, and I would suggest even the possibility of a “reverse gateway” effect if you had legal or quasi-legal access to mostly harmless drugs, while the most harmful ones were slightly more controlled. To give a concrete example, many have reported after taking LSD (or other psychedelics)* that their lives have changed for the better due to a changed outlook, increased spirituality, and change in perspective. In specific cases LSD has been successfully used to treat alcoholism and other psychedelics have treated other substance abuse and mental illnesses as well. If people have the right tools to effect permanent positive mental change, then they will be less likely to seek out self-defeating temporary fixes like alcohol, cocaine, opiates, etc.
That’s my hypothesis anyway. If you let people feed their minds with healthy drugs, then they won’t gorge on fast food. It’s not that simple of course… collateral damage from drug use is with us forever, like it or not, but we can start letting people incorporate these tools into their lives in safer and healthier ways by providing good public policy around it.
I haven’t met anyone in about two years who gets weed from a black market dealer. The weed at the stores comes right off the plants in the backyard. Who wants stale shwag that’s two weeks old?
You have a good point about people trusting the government. Actually, you answered your own question. One of my friends keeps bugging me to hook him up. I get, “I can’t afford the license.” He waits tables. Two lunch shifts give him enough money, I pointed out. “Well, what about the government?”
I explained that each time I go to the store, they take my driver’s license and marijuana card. When I walk in, on the computer screen is a large blowup of my driver’s license, photo and all. This scared the fuck out of him. “I don’t want them knowing what I buy!!” (He’s a pretty devout Jew if that matters. He claims his grandparents always say never tell anyone in a uniform anything.)
I explained that is the point. They have to know how much you buy because you have a limit. You can’t buy a pound a week. If you did, cops would knock on your door and ask to see how many plastic bags you hoard for dealing.
The licenses are for safety. Same reason we have driver’s licenses. If I get lung cancer, I won’t qualify for smoking marijuana, but I could buy as many edibles as I want and keep a decent appetite through chemo. So I get a limited license. If my blood pressure is off the charts, I won’t get a license at all.
The penalties, unfortunately, will have to pay for the watchdogs. Remember, a liquor store license has limits too.
Those are WAY expensive and have serious penalties.
But, like most things in the US, we have to wait until people get used to it. Eventually, legalize it all.
Does your friend who always bugs you to buy him some weed not qualify for some reason? He clearly doesn’t have a license, and I doubt he’s abstaining.
I haven’t found really good statistics on this, but here’s a back of the envelope calculation using some info I found:
The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse shows that about 5.8% of people have used marijuana in the past month. According to this pdf of Medical Marijuana Patient Estimates, there were 8200 people registered with San Francisco’s program, which is only about 1% of the population of San Francisco. That would indicate that about 80% of SF users don’t get their marijuana from a store. I’d guess that number would be higher somewhere less liberal than San Francisco.
I guess I still don’t see the reason for the license. If you can’t get a license at all, are you really going to stop smoking? A major argument against prohibition is that people are going to anyway, and trying to stop it just makes them criminals, and funnels money to criminal organizations. A licensing system doesn’t fix much if most people will ignore the license if they can’t or don’t want to get one. We don’t need licenses for alcohol or tobacco, which are much more similar to marijuana than driving is.
That is why I personally advocate that for the most harmless drugs, they should be unrestricted except to regulate commercial-scale possession and transactions.
My friend Johnny is only unqualified by not going to the doctor. 
He’s a good guy, but he says that he’s afraid the government will somehow prosecute him, put his name on some kind of “watch list” (his words). He got really scared when I told him that whenever I visit a store, without buying anything, it’s still recorded I was there. This is only so i don’t show up at ten stores in one day and buy over the legal amount. Medically, Johnny’s good to go.
Good link you provided. There was a great show on History Channel about marijuana in San Fran. Some people’s gardens are basically the landscape of their backyard. (!) They started a long time ago, now with the licensing going on with all the red tape, licensing is really a useless idea. My only thing with licensing is to keep away anyone who could abuse it. I really don’t think that anyone who is prescribed Oxycontin and Xanax should be qualified to get a marijuana license.
And as far as other posters point out, alcohol and tobacco are bought with a driver’s license OR a valid photo ID. There are requirements for that too: Last year, CA made me take the written test again, even though I’ve lived out here a while and been driving since I was 17. Still, why shouldn’t they check to see if I’m still okay to drive? I had to take the eye exam too, and I was charged a fee to do so, plus a license renewal fee.
How is that different from a marijuana license? I was tested to get permission to buy marijuana for personal use. They checked my eyes too. I have to pay for the marijuana license just like I do for the Driver’s license. I have to pay for a renewal marijuana license this August, two years from now, I’ll have to pay for a renewal for the driver’s license. If I go to a pot shop, there’s a record of that. If I drive and get pulled over, there’s a record for that too.
Plus, you can’t sell alcohol to anyone who is intoxicated at a store or restaurant. Same with weed. The only difference I see between legally buying alcohol and legally buying weed is that I’m not allowed to share my weed with those unlicensed, BUT I can share any booze I want with my friends AS LONG AS THEY’RE OVER 21. Both licenses share similar restrictions. Can buy weed/liquor in public, can’t USE it in public. Has to be at home or at a bar / smoke shop. Can’t drive while intoxicated on either.
With the economic state that CA is in right now, Legalize it, Governor Tosh-- er, Schwarzenegger. 
#2 just marijuana for now.
psik
people shouldn’t drink and take aspirin. should all alcohol-purchasing power be suspended if someone buys aspirin?
driver’s license =/= alcohol license. the requirements are for driving. you could just as easily purchase alcohol with a passport, ID card, etc. there is no alcohol license. there are no qualifiers to purchasing alcohol except being 21 - even if you’re an abuser.
what exactly are the qualifications of your pot license? no medical qualifications? no criminal qualifications? if everyone can get one, then why have it? do we need a license for every substance that intoxicates? i’m with walrus. i don’t understand why people should be licensed for this.
again, no license for alcohol. if it’s analagous to buying booze, then why have it?
Marijuana - I’d make it legal to possess, legal to use in private, legal to grow up to a certain amount, and legal to sell in private person-to-person transactions. I don’t want the government or corporate America involved in it at all, and if it’s really out in the open (public use, sale at retail establishments) there’s no way they won’t be.
I’d treat stuff like LSD, mushrooms, and ecstasy the same way.
Heroin–I’d have the government give it away. There would be centers for it, convenient and open 24/7, where you could get your dose, a clean needle, and a clean, comfortable place to shoot it up. (You’d have to use it on the premises.) You would have to register as a heroin user which would mean you couldn’t drive and you would be required to inform any potential employer about it (though he’d be prohibited from telling anyone else). Counseling is always available for those who want to stop using.
I believe that these centers would be cheaper than dealing with the crimes committed by junkies looking for a fix.
Cocaine, PCP, Meth - I honestly have no idea what to do about those.
I mean why don’t you count him as someone who gets pot through the black market? You said that you don’t know anyone who does, then in the same post mentioned your friend who tries to. Something there doesn’t add up.
Put all the license and distribution controls for prescription and recreational drugs under my supervision. I will then personally see that drugs are distributed properly for a small processing fee that will be waived once my moon base is built.
Do whatever you want to. No drug is illegal.
If you avail yourself of the drug you have to sign a DNR order so nobody is responsible for you if you overdose.
If you kill anybody while under the influence you get the chair. Period.
If you injure someone you get life in prison. Period.
If you damage anything you will be assessed a 500% markup on the replacement/repair cost.
If you die under the circumstances laid out in points 3-5, your family pays the restitution. Period. If your only surviving family member is a 6-year-old girl, she pays the debt as soon as she starts working. Said family members are ineligible for welfare so they cannot avoid paying, they have to get a job. Bankruptcy does not discharge said members from their obligations.
You want to do it, more power to you, but be aware that the penalties for acting irresponsibly will be draconian for all involved.
^
please tell me i missed the sarcasm. are those rules for real?
Absolutely. What do they all have in common? Personal responsibility. As long as you man up yo what you’re doing and act responsibly nobody gets hurt. The moment you abdicate that responsibility your balls are in a sling. What possible objection could you have to that?