The Oxy Epidemic Shows What Happens When Addictive Drugs Are Easily Available

The Oxy Epidemic Shows What Happens When Addictive Drugs Are Easily Available
—By Kevin Drum | Thu Jan. 7, 2016

Robert VerBruggen says he's always had a libertarian view of drug policy: legalize 'em all. We'd get less incarceration, less gang and cartel violence, and an end to the war on drugs, all at a pretty modest cost.

Then again, maybe not:

Well, reality is not lining up with this view of the world. In 1999, Americans had fatal drug overdoses at a rate of 6 per 100,000. In 2014, that number stood at 14.8 per 100,000 — a rise of 8.8 per 100,000. To put this in perspective, America's famously high homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000. And the overdose spike is apparently driven by a policy change much gentler than full legalization.

The general consensus seems to be that in recent decades, doctors started taking patients' pain more seriously, and thus began prescribing opioid painkillers more generously. Some patients became addicted; others got medications they didn't need and sold them. (It appears that most addicts are not getting their drugs directly from a doctor.) Efforts to clamp down on this problem may have had an effect on painkiller overdose deaths — there was a dip in 2012 and 2013 — but 2014 saw another record high. Many addicts are switching to heroin, another opioid with a staggering and growing death toll.

Now, extrapolating from this narrative, imagine if we completely legalized all drugs, not only removing the threat of incarceration but also dramatically driving down prices.

The United States and Canada account for 83 percent of the worldwide consumption of oxycodone, the narcotic painkiller that's caused the biggest addiction and overdose problems. No one else even comes close: Germany is in third place at 3.5 percent.

VerBruggen is right: this is an indication of what might happen if all recreational drugs were legalized. It doesn't have to be what happens, but the laws of economics don't magically stop when it comes to drugs. If you lower the price dramatically—both in dollars and easier availability—then consumption is going to go up. And that's going to mean more addiction and more death. Nobody can say for sure how much more, but the Oxy epidemic suggests it could be pretty substantial.

On a related note, the famous Case/Deaton paper showing a rise in white mortality since 2000 breaks out three categories of death: suicides, liver disease (a proxy for alcohol abuse), and drug poisoning. All three have gone up, but poisoning has gone up far, far more than the others. The first two have increased about 50 percent since 2000. Poisoning has increased about 1,500 percent. This coincides with the period when Oxy became popular, and probably accounts for a big part of the difference between increased white mortality in America vs. other countries. Oxy is a famously white drug, and may also account for the fact that mortality has increased among whites but not blacks or Hispanics.

And on another related note, the damage from the Oxy epidemic is worst among the poor and working class. It's easy to favor drug legalization when you're middle-class and well educated. Your social group probably doesn't include many people who abuse drugs much in the first place. Moderate users can afford their habit. And when their use turns into addiction, they usually have a strong support network to help out. It's a problem, but not a huge one.


http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dr...ens-when-addictive-drugs-are-easily-available

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I think there are some erroneous conclusions here. Sure seems to be some contradicting posts. Id love to see some great posts dissecting and refuting this article. If we get some lets give a little heads up to Mr. Drum inviting him to the discussion?

this is an indication of what might happen if all recreational drugs were legalized.

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Yes, "might" being the key word here.....
You see, if all drugs were legalized, the social aspects of drug use would change radically.
For example, it would be less potentially embarrassing and risky to seek help for an overdose.
Addicts would have a far easier time finding help to treat their addictions, rather than being punished for having addictions, as is typically the case now.
And, with more drugs available, people could easily choose those that are less addictive and less harmful, especially with the increased education that would inevitably accompany legalization.
So, it's not a simple as the article makes it out.

The article actually makes a good point although it does ignore what slimvictor posted. It could go either way

I'll leave the honor of dissecting this to the more educated posters. A few minor points, though:

Well, reality is not lining up with this view of the world. In 1999, Americans had fatal drug overdoses at a rate of 6 per 100,000. In 2014, that number stood at 14.8 per 100,000 — a rise of 8.8 per 100,000. To put this in perspective, America's famously high homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000. And the overdose spike is apparently driven by a policy change much gentler than full legalization.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the era when opioids were given out like candy like late 90s and early 2000s, after which came a clampdown? So, by 2014 there were already a lot of people hooked (whether psychologically or *ahem* real pain patient who were denied their MEDICINE, just so in case somebody else couldn't feel nice for a moment), and a big portion of them did what they had to do in the absence of other safer choices - they switched to street heroin, which is of uncertain potency (easier OD) and all other nasty stuff. There have already been articles showing data how the clampdown caused an increase in heroin overdose deaths, which in turn increased overall overdose deaths. So it is false to take data from 2014, because in reality that high overdose rate is due to STRICTER policy, not the other way round.

And anyway, it is not really the drugs that are truly responsible for deaths. It is the lack of harm reduction and easily available objective information - well of course some people are reckless and are going to die anyway, but that's Darwinism for you.

If you lower the price dramatically—both in dollars and easier availability—then consumption is going to go up. And that's going to mean more addiction and more death. Nobody can say for sure how much more, but the Oxy epidemic suggests it could be pretty substantial.

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Not necessarily I say. Most likely the overall rate of consumption per capita will rise, but that is not an argument. Neither is addiction. Are we all stressed out that way over half of Americans (or other populace) drink coffee on a regular basis and wouldn't want to drop the "addiction"? No, because it is the consequences of (ab)use that we should worry about - the fact that an otherwise well-off adult person decides to smoke opium after work to relax before bed is NOT the problem, stop seeing it as a morality issue. A lot of overdoses are preventable through education and making antidotes (where applicable) easier to obtain and use. Making drugs legal would make talking about them easier - make it a health issue rather than a criminal one, not to mention taking the uncertainty of dosages out of the equation (due to black market) - and that is no small player! Also, don't believe for a second that most of hopeless drug addicts want to be in that position. No, they want a way out, but we as a society have been failing at aiding them in a major way.

On a related note, the famous Case/Deaton paper showing a rise in white mortality since 2000 breaks out three categories of death: suicides, liver disease (a proxy for alcohol abuse), and drug poisoning. All three have gone up, but poisoning has gone up far, far more than the others. The first two have increased about 50 percent since 2000. Poisoning has increased about 1,500 percent.

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I think he shot himself in the foot here. Alcohol related deaths decreased while it's legal and has been for a long time. So how did it decrease? Aside from better health care, through education. Alcohol may not be the best example of legal drugs here, but take a look at tobacco (also plenty of articles on this). It's also legal, but through warnings and education we've reduced tobacco-related problems significantly while NOT ATTACKING personal freedom of adult persons. Oh, while I'm rambling about tobacco and alcohol; both are fairly harmful addictions long-term, yet legal. I would speculate that by making other drugs legal and thus potentially increasing their usage, it would be most likely followed by a decrease in alcohol consumption. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer someone used cannabis or hydrocodone rather than alcohol as a recreational substance. Generally speaking, alcohol is one of the most harmful, both physically and mentally, drugs to be used long-term. So we should not forget that increase in other drug use would likely decrease alcohol consumption, which is also a good thing.

And on another related note, the damage from the Oxy epidemic is worst among the poor and working class. It's easy to favor drug legalization when you're middle-class and well educated. Your social group probably doesn't include many people who abuse drugs much in the first place. Moderate users can afford their habit. And when their use turns into addiction, they usually have a strong support network to help out. It's a problem, but not a huge one.

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First of all, there have been studies done that show that drugs don't discriminate according to wealth, so it doesn't matter whether a class is wealthy or not, there will still be plenty of addicts. So again, shoots himself in the foot by saying that wealthier people can afford their habit and have strong support network so it's not a problem, while poor don't. So why not provide them with such? Wouldn't that just solve the problem? A lot of people who have gone through the heroin cycle want out, and they could step back into society and become productive members thereof had they access to a proper rehab/buprenorphine/methadone maintenance. Also, criminal records don't help bring people back into the workforce and thus make them members of society again (and this would also decrease the severity of drug abuse in most) - drug legalization would take care of that.

Bottom line is though, nobody knows how complete drug legalization will work out. But we know which problems it will mostly solve, and there are plenty of those problems, so it's worth a try. By now, we know that prohibition doesn't work.

E: also by legalizing drugs and regulating them of federal level we will get rid of a big portion of the black market, which will in turn decrease violence. More lives saved.

Doesn't the DEA itself argue that the illegal drug market is a case of "inflexible demand"? If I remember correctly, the population of the USA which uses heroin hasn't changed significantly since the 1970s. That despite the fact that heroin on average is more inexpensive and more available than at any other time. So that seems to undercut the argument that "If you lower the price dramatically—both in dollars and easier availability—then consumption is going to go up."

Also, what is this weird interlude about "white mortality" and oxycodone being a "white drug"? What does that even have to do with anything? Also the class argument...alcoholism and drug addiction strike every income level, not just the poor. I would think that the recent trends in opiate addiction would finally put an end to that BS, but apparently not. Of course public health problems effect the poor the hardest, but I can think of much, much worse problems for the poor than drug addiction at this point (such as the non-stop decline of trade unions in the USA since the 1970s, which was once a bulwark of support for the lower-middle class, declining buying power for workers, America's abysmal healthcare system, etc.)

There are of course other arguments to be made, such as legalization occurring in a completely different cultural/legal paradigm than the "oxy epidemic" (which transpired while narcotics were still highly controlled & criminalized)...to me assuming that there would be an absolute explosion in the use of narcotics if they were more freely available to the general public is based on the old fallacy of thinking that you're a great, morally upstanding citizen, BUT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY NEIGHBOR! 8)

I don't know the states you guys live in but it's much easier to get heroin then oxys(legally or illegally) here. I'm a legit pain patient(also former junky to make things complex) and have to drive 30 miles each way to get my script because all of the pain clinics in my area have been shutdown or the doctors will only give injections and no meds.

I don't think so, I think it would help... Education, less crime, less people dying! etc. etc...it wouldn't seem so 'cool' anymore I don't think either. I'm sure it would fuck some people up and younger people would be more like "i don't wanna end up like that' say if we had clinics you had to go to and got drug tested if you were on opieates(like a heroin clinic). Now it's like, oh it's illeagal, it's bad, and I'm gonna look like a baaadass doing it, nothing bad will happen to me.

In the film "The House I Live In" (which may be the best movie about drugs I've ever seen, definitely the best documentary) they mention that, prior to when the federal government went after drugs & drug users aggressively, drug addicts were mostly viewed as objects of sympathy and pity, and weren't demonized as they were when drug use became a criminal matter. I definitely feel that the criminalization and subsequent demonization of drugs has made drug use a lot more appealing to "outsider culture".

If all drugs were legal there would be more open discussion about the negative effects of drugs and MUCH less stigma about being into drugs, even recreationally and this would lead to people seeking help sooner and in general just having more knowledge more readily available about what they are getting into because they'd already have friends openly admitting to having been through the same thing themselves and doctors who would readily give knowledge about how these drugs can be used, even recreationally, without getting completely addicted if used in SERIOUS moderation.

I don't believe AT ALL that the Oxy Epidemic shows what would happen if drugs were legal.

People get injured and then take some pain pills USUALLY most of them being completely unaware of the addictive dangers and not even seeking a high.

THEN they find they like the high, but by that time they are already in too deep and afraid to admit it to anyone because of social stigma.

If all drugs were legal (or decriminalized) and everyone was 100% open about it and non-judgemental, from doctors to pharamacists to cops to your next door neighbor, EVERYTHING would change.

It would be like admitting you have an alcohol problem or are addicted to cigs which are MUCH less stigmatized.

Not only that, but there would be no "sneak attack factor" to the pain patients who unknowingly get addicted to these drugs.

IMO EVERY SINGLE pain patient should be given "the lecture" by their doctor the first time they are prescribed pain pills that they can be enjoyable if abused and NOT make it sound like it's a "horrible" thing to do, just that it can be dangerous and addictive.

The doctor would explain that it's only natural to want to seek a high and explain SAFE guidelines under which it could be done as well as unsafe ones so the patient doesn't have to hide anything.

When things are hidden, lies are told, and hidden addictions become super dangerous problems.

When things are out in the open, everything changes IMO.

I think we should decriminalize/legalize EVERYTHING, including the hardest drugs, for people over 18 in the privacy of their own homes.

Overall, the world in general and not just the U.S. (or whatever country you live in ) needs to de-stigmatize RECREATIONAL drug usage.

The idea that in this day and age it's "wrong" to want to feel good from a drug (unless it's alcohol of course and then you can just drink till you drop) is ridiculous, and it's this perpetuated stigma that keeps people hiding their addictions which leads to deaths or serious problems which may have been avoided if they'd thought they could have admitted their problem without being judged.

Robert VerBruggen says he's always had a libertarian view of drug policy: legalize 'em all. We'd get less incarceration, less gang and cartel violence, and an end to the war on drugs, all at a pretty modest cost.

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This situation is indeed quite complex and with any proposed change in world policy the world would be foolish not to examine the all the potential and probable outcomes. To me it seems like your take here is based off a total bi polar shift in policy? With anything this complex I propose we engage in a much higher level of problem solving. As developing humans, we are still tethered to an antiquated way of thinking. Flight or Fight, Danger or Reward, its either good or bad. This approach to life is very limiting and will expound with failure that more advanced approaches will not fall victim to.

IMO there is no doubt that full legalization would produce much better results to the World than the current approach. Instead why don't we find the best approach; Take everything we can find that has had positive results and combine and develop the best approach we can.

Instead of flipping to the completely opposite approach why don't we find the best approach?

False dilemma

Then again, maybe not:

Well, reality is not lining up with this view of the world. In 1999, Americans had fatal drug overdoses at a rate of 6 per 100,000. In 2014, that number stood at 14.8 per 100,000 — a rise of 8.8 per 100,000. To put this in perspective, America's famously high homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000. And the overdose spike is apparently driven by a policy...

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ABINGDON, Va. — Purdue Pharma L.P., the maker of OxyContin, and three of its executives were ordered Friday to pay a $634.5 million fine for misleading the public about the painkiller’s risk of addiction.

Unbacked money means nothing to those that can print it. Even given this I still "waiting" for even one person effected by the this to have seen a cent to help them. People that print unbacked money will never have need for it.

Even if they did what does a 630 million dollar payment to the government come out to be really. Well since no one, negatively affected by the epidemic, has come forth claiming they received help from the money from this fine, then it just seems like the puppet government just took its awful cut. Really whats 634 mill to a billionaire drug dealing family. Its not that they don't want us to do drugs, they want us to required to use their drugs. Just the gov pretending to deal with anything while taking their cut.

The OxyContin Clan: The $14 Billion Newcomer to Forbes 2015 List of Richest U.S. Families

Medical career[edit]
Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (P) in 1957, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Sackler, with his two brothers Arthur and Mortimer Sackler, were co-founders of the Creedmoor Institute for Psychobiological Studies in New York City, where they engaged in research in the psycho-biology of schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis. They received two awards from the Medical Society of the State of New York: the First Award for Scientific Research; and one year later, Honorable Mention for Scientific Research.

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Well if your not talented at medicine maybe your good at making money? No worries just swing opiates and buy your standing This is the most awarded drug dealers I have ever imagined.

Honors and awards (partial list)[edit]
Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa, Tel Aviv University, 1979
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, France, 1989, promoted to Officer de la Légion d'honneur, 2013
Honorary Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (KBE), 1995
Doctor of Law Honoris Causa, University of Cambridge, 1998[4]
Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris Causa, University of Connecticut, 1998
Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, Medical University of Ohio at Toledo, 2006
Officer in the Royal Order of Orange Nassau, The Netherlands, 2004

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Tel Aviv University also serves as the institutional sponsor of two prestigious prizes endowed by Sackler and his wife Beverly:

The International Prize in Physical Sciences[1]
The International Prize in Biophysics[2]
Sackler and his wife Beverly established the Institute of Advanced Studies at Tel Aviv University with Mortimer participating.

Sackler was the moving force, one of the founders, and oversaw the implementation of the Sackler School of Medicine New York State / American Program chartered by the New York State Board of Regents that provides a four-year medical education program for American students at the Sackler School of Medicine of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

Convergence Research Programs In the past decades, Sackler and his wife Beverly have created, supported and endowed numerous programs that embrace the concept of convergence in scientific research. These programs include:

The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Fellowship at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS), France, to fund invited researchers from Israel at IHÉS, 1990
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler American Fellowship at IHÉS, France, to fund invited researchers from the USA at IHÉS, 2002
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Institute of Biophysics, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, 2004
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lectureship at IHÉS, France, 2004
The Raymond & Beverly Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, Yale University, 2008
Raymond & Beverly Sackler Laboratories of Biomedical and Biophysical Studies, Rockefeller University, 2008
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical and Physical Sciences, Weill Cornell Medical College, including a program in cardiac stem cell research dedicated to friend and colleague Professor Isadore Rosenfeld, 2008
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Fund for Biomedical and Physical Sciences (in honor of Phillip A. Sharp), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2010
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratory of Biomedical and Physical Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 2010
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratories in the Physics of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2010
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut, 2011
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Physical and Engineering Sciences in honor of Emilio Segre, University of California, Berkeley, 2011
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratories for Biomedical, Physical and Engineering Sciences in honor of Saul J. Farber, New York University, School of Medicine, 2011
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Convergence of Biomedical, Physical and Engineering Sciences in honor of David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology, 2012
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Convergence of Biomedical, Physical and Engineering Sciences in honor of Herbert Pardes, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, 2012
The Raymond & Beverly Sackler Convergence Laboratory, Tufts University School of Medicine, 2013
In 2003, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in the Medical Sciences series was established in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Sciences. Previous speakers have included Aaron Klug, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Richard P. Lifton.

In addition, to promote national and international scientific collaboration, Sackler and his wife Beverly established in 2008, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler USA-UK Scientific Forum, to foster collaboration between the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and the Royal Society (UK).

In 2010, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Science Fund in honor of Ralph J. Cicerone, at the National Academy of Sciences (USA) was established to provide support of scientific programs independent of governmental requests/funding.[3]

In 2011, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture Series in Neuroscience was established at Cardiff University.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Sackler

The general consensus seems to be that in recent decades, doctors started taking patients' pain more seriously, and thus began prescribing opioid painkillers more generously. Some patients became addicted; others got medications they didn't need and sold them. (It appears that most addicts are not getting their drugs directly from a doctor.)

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Its fully legal for medical professionals to get people dependent , but once an addiction services it gets much more complicated. Unfortunately Drs are now just pawns of undesirable pukes.

At around the same time, the companies that manufactured these narcotics—including Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Endo Pharmaceuticals—began to aggressively market their products for long-term, non-cancer pain, including neck and back pain. They promoted their prescription narcotics to doctors through ads in highly regarded publications, and through continuing-education courses for medical professionals. They also funded non-profits such as the American Academy of Pain Management and the American Pain Society—the latter previously headed by Dr. Russell Portenoy, a co-author of the Pain study and a proselytizer for expanded narcotics prescribing. The American Pain Society published guidelines that advocated for doctors to expand their use of prescription narcotics to relieve pain.


The Joint Commission, which accredits health facilities, issued pain-management standards in 2001 that instructed hospitals to measure pain—you may be familiar with the smiling-to-crying faces scale—and to prioritize its treatment. Elizabeth Zhani, a spokeswoman for the Joint Commission, told me that their standards “were based upon both the emerging and compelling science of that time, and upon the consensus of a broad array of professionals.” Yet Purdue, according to a report issued by the U. S. Government Accountability Office, helped fund a “pain-management educational program” organized by the Joint Commission; a related agreement allowed Purdue to disseminate educational materials on pain management, and this, in the words of the report, “may have facilitated its access to hospitals to promote OxyContin.”

In a policy drafted by several people with ties to narcotics makers, including Haddox, the Federation of State Medical Boards called on the boards to punish doctors for inadequately treating pain, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Federation also reportedly accepted money from pharmaceutical firms to produce and distribute narcotics-prescribing guidelines. In an e-mail, the Federation maintained: “[Our] most recent policy reflects the considerable body of research and experience accrued since our last series of formal policies related to opioid prescribing and addiction were adopted in 2004. Our latest guidelines, adopted this year, acknowledge that evidence for the risk associated with opioids has surged, while evidence for the benefits of opioids for long-term use has remained controversial and insufficient.”

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Who Is Responsible for the Pain-Pill Epidemic?

Big Pharma also created this little gem

Efforts to clamp down on this problem may have had an effect on painkiller overdose deaths — there was a dip in 2012 and 2013 — but 2014 saw another record high. Many addicts are switching to heroin, another opioid with a staggering and growing death toll.

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Totally agree. Why haven't the billionaire drug dealers been at least held financially responsible for the undeniable effects of their drugs?

Now, extrapolating from this narrative, imagine if we completely legalized all drugs, not only removing the threat of incarceration but also dramatically driving down prices.

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Incarceration does nothing to prevent drug use. In fact it promotes it. TRUE.

This chart comes from documentary film maker Matt Groff. He compared the rate of addiction to illicit drugs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pairing it with federal drug control budget spending numbers from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy.

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TBC

Thanks all and I will kick Mr. Drum an invite to join us.

I don't think the prohibition will ever end ,to many people making massive dollars keeping us as their slaves. I love it when people tell me the war on drugs is so expensive the government can't keep this up,well guess what the government is using our money to pay for the war on us(ain't coming out of their pockets). Not to mention prisions,rehabs,hospitals,insurance,and big Pharma are making a killing!
The big joke is the war is on us and we are footing the bill anyone else think the U.S. is the land of the free? It's an illusion and we are all sheep!

It's basically totally wrong because this is not, in any sense, a case of SINGLE CAUSE -> SINGLE EFFECT.

In fact, one of the biggest failures in this article resides in this little sentence...

(It appears that most addicts are not getting their drugs directly from a doctor.)

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Imagine if the Harrison Act didn't exist and you could discuss recreational opiate dependency with your Doctor without fear of stigma? If he could give you the same HR advice we give here (but more, because he has your health history), and then you could just go buy what he recommends at the store (for a fraction of what it costs now, even though a big piece of the cost would go to drug treatment programs).

Felonious Monk said:

Imagine if the Harrison Act didn't exist and you could discuss recreational opiate dependency with your Doctor without fear of stigma? If he could give you the same HR advice we give here (but more, because he has your health history), and then you could just go buy what he recommends at the store (for a fraction of what it costs now, even though a big piece of the cost would go to drug treatment programs).

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QFT. That would solve a lot of problems.

The harrison act was an incredible sham. It kept doctors from being able to maintain their addicts, thus delivering them into the hands of criminal enterprises. Not to mention a doctor would be able to work on your dosage with you and give you access to cleaner unadulterated medicines and clean works. Now doctors are afraid of losing their licenses and being put on a watch list if they prescribe pain killers. Honestly, there needs to be more options than methadone and buprenorphine for maintaining addicts, because these often don't work for everyone. Addiction/dependence is not a one size fits all thing.

Another benefit to legalizing and decriminalizing is the amount of money we spend on incarceration of non-violent drug addicts could be used to create better/cheaper rehabs, and more outreach programs to help people that are actively using.

This paper just smacks of a writer that knows little about how addiction and casual drug use works.

Very well said manboychef. As I've also pointed out in my first post here, addiction in itself is not a necessarily bad thing. Many people are addicted to coffee or other benign substances/activities/things. That doesn't mean we should criminalize everything and try to exterminate everything. Of course, if all drugs were legalized, most likely way more people would start to use them and some would get addicted, but as long as we can make it so it doesn't affect their life too much (*cough* criminal records *cough*, too high drug prices, no good rehabs/programs), it shouldn't be viewed as a problem. So the whole more cheaper/available drugs = more addictions argument against legalization is as good as void.