DISPATCHES FROM THE WAR ON DRUGS

To the Editor:

At some point we must extend to other drugs the same uneasy truce we
have made with alcohol. The mental chasm is to accept such a thing as
"responsible" drug use just as we accept the concept of "responsible"
alcohol use.

The many disastrous consequences of drug prohibition will keep getting
worse until people become more afraid of prohibition than of drug use.
Legal regulation is not a good solution, just the best one. When I
began studying the history of drug laws, I soon became interested in
alcohol prohibition. I have come to believe that the main difference
is the scale of the problem: compared with alcohol, other drugs are
such a small problem that it has been possible to believe for much
longer that criminal law can change human appetites.

Alcohol prohibition turned America upside down in less than 10 years
and was repealed in 13 years. Prohibition of other drugs has taken 10
times as long to create the destruction we are seeing today. How much
longer?

BOB RAMSEY

Irving, Tex., June 17, 2011