Lessons from pot about legalizing other drugs in Canada

[S.J.B.]

Lessons from pot about legalizing other drugs in Canada
Don Pittis
CBC
April 29th, 2019

Economists have been among the most insistent that the prohibition of drugs and alcohol doesn't work.

In what many have observed as a perverse symbiosis between enforcement agencies and the producers of illicit drugs, cracking down on the substances people use to addle their brains only makes producing them more lucrative.

U.S. economist Peter Reuter, a scholar known for his early research on the illegal drug market, observed this relationship when it came to cannabis and cocaine.

"The relatively high prices of these drugs historically are a consequence of enforcement," he wrote in the abstract for a 1986 paper titled Risks and Prices: An Economic Analysis of Drug Enforcement.

More than 30 years later and despite billions spent to stem their use, illegal drugs, especially opiates, continue to devastate communities. The death toll in Canada — more than 10,300 in less than three years — is large enough that health experts warn it may be having an effect on Canada's overall life expectancy.

Read the full story here.

 

[Hornywhenhigh]

I don't see why countries don't just go ahead and legalize all these different drugs that are found on the streets. If legalized then they could be produced in a more controlled environment and would be much safer for consumption instead of not knowing whether or not a batch of drugs just bought is going to kill someone because of how it was made and what was put in it that normally wouldn't be.