Okay, I’ve found a website that backs up some of the things posted here by Sua, although some of the data it refers to is a bit dated.
http://www.heroin-information.org/heroin/pages/how_bad_withdrawal.html
I suppose that my difficulty in understanding drug usage is that I cannot comprehend why someone would want to engage in an unnecessary risky practice for the mere benefit of a temporarily physical sensation. Because despite the fact that the risks of many drugs are overblown, this is still not a healthy thing to do. But then again, neither is my love of large juicy steaks I suppose. But after eating a steak, I’m still in control over my senses. (No, I don’t drink either.) And I’d stop eating steak if it became apparent that it was beginning to affect my chances of living through the next meal. I still don’t feel I’m really any closer to understanding drug use.
But let’s move on and began to theorize what happens in a drug legal world.
Drugs are legal. Dealers no longer have to hide in the shadows. They stumble out into the sunlight and begin to sell. Perhaps they become as annoying as the panhandlers.
Does the violence stop? In time, the drug trade would move into store-shops. In the short term I believe there would actually be an upswing in violence. These folks are not use to friendly competition. Who gets to stand where or set up shop where will be determined by gangs with all the efficiency that the Italian mobs show when it comes to charging protection money. Drug dealers are not going to let Mom & Pop stores simply take their profits away without a bit of heavy leaning.
Much of the imagined benefit of legalization is that drugs would become more pure in form thus reducing overdoses and poisoning by less scruplous dealers. But for this to happen there must be some type of quality control and approval process. (Picture in your head a former DEA agent saying “Oh yeah man, this is good shit.” Chuckle and move on.) We can take the funds once aimed at interdiction and move it to this process if we wish but what process do we use? Do we simply label stuff? Is there a level of purity that must be obtained or the drug will not be allowed to be sold? How would we even get this stuff to be inspected? We can’t track what comes in now. How easy will it be for dealers wanting to make a bit more money to label their wares falsely?
And what happens as new drugs are created? The FDA takes years just to approve medical drugs, will recreational drugs have a lower standard or no standard at all? Is there a lethality rate that we will not accept? Or do we post a warning label on it, “Recent studies have shown that this kills rats faster than cyanide.” Tough cookies to anyone stupid enough to try it. Someone will. Does the seller now get charged for murder?
We can also expect people to enact the “Not in my Backyard” rule. Expect drug sales to be zoned to the poorest districts alongside run-down porno theaters.
I don’t expect answers to all these questions. I just want to point out that if the legalization of drugs is seriously contemplated, it is going to take a lot more planning than simply making a blanket declaration.
(I’m out of here for the weekend. Everyone take care.)
Seriously, though, I believe that if drugs are legalized, things may eventually settle down into socially-accepted normalcy, but first we’d have to deal with a lot of binging as the former forbidden fruit is handed out to all and sundry for cheap. How we’d deal with that long enough for the inital euphoria (no pun intended) to die down, I dunno.