I spent a year prosecuting Felony drug crimes in Portland, Oregon (a great, but insanely liberal city). In addtion to dealing with the daily run of users and dealers, we also had year-long program of rehab for those facing a felony possession charge; make it through a year of treatment, piss tests, and court visits every 6 weeks, and get the charge dropped. So my comments are shaped by this experience. Sitting in a courtroom two afternoons a week representing the state while 150 drug addicts get up one by one to lie to the Judge gives one a unique insight to the mentality of those who get sucked into this mess.

By law and policy we would hammer dealers, and coddle users. Most judges would refuse to even hear a marijuana case. As many of you have stated, this is complicated, but I think we would be hard pressed to adopt a new system as horribly flawed, with such devastating 2nd and 3rd order effects as the current one.

Some form of legalization makes sense. To target supply only affects price. What we need is a way to legally buy the stuff so that it can be regulated and taxed, and to disempower the tremendous criminal and terrorist networks funded by the current system. We then need a strong family of laws as to who can use what, when and where. Let people make choices. If your choice is to use drugs, you opt out of most responsible positions in society. Finally you'd need common-sense, relatively low cost ways to enforce. Easy testing, and ways to punish those who violate the system that does not ruin them for life or punish the taxpayers in the process.

We'd need to let go of some of our Puritanical impulses to adopt such a system, but I believe we really need to.

Frankly our current policy, like so much foreign policy, is racist. Put the onus on brown people, but hold white people harmless. It's not my kids using that are the problem, it is some Columbian's kids growing or manufacturing a product that pays enough to put food on the table that is the problem. We need to evolve. We need to take responsibility at a personal and national level. I don't see many politicians prioritizing this issue beyond the status quo though.