Analysis of the Drug Legalization Debate

Analysis of the Drug Legalization Debate

PIs: Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter

Funded by: Arthur P. Sloan Foundation, The Ford Foundation

Despite occasional expressions of sympathy from prominent persons, drug legalization is dismissed out of hand by mainstream politicians. RAND has analyzed the claims of proponents and opponents of legalization. In particular, researchers have examined U.S. experience in regulating gambling and tobacco and alcohol use, as well as experience with legal cocaine a century ago. They also sought analogies in the looser regulatory stances of countries such as The Netherlands and Switzerland. Among the lessons they drew was the importance not so much of legalization as of drug commercialization in increasing the frequency of use. They emphasized the very different kinds of effects that prohibition and legalization have and the difficulty of trading these off against each other, and the likelihood that the benefits and costs of legalization would not be distributed evenly across society. Finally, they pointed out the possibility of realizing some gain in loosening the probhitionist straitjacket typifying current U.S. drug policy in a manner that falls well short of legalization.

Related Publications:

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Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, & Places — 2001

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In Policies and Strategies to Combat Drugs in Europe, edited by Georges Estievenart. Amsterdam, Kluwer, pp. 39-49.

A Content Analysis of the Drug Legalization Debate — 1994

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