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:
Drugs and the Law: A Psychological Analysis of Drug Prohibition — 2004
Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, & Places — 2001
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press
What We Do and Don't Know About the Likely Effects of Decriminalization and Legalization — 1999
The Psychology of Harm Reduction: Comparing Alternative Strategies for Modifying High-Risk Behaviors— 1997
Interpreting Dutch Cannabis Policy: Reasoning by Analogy in the Legalization Debate — 1997
Assessing Alternative Drug Control Regimes — 1996
Lessons from the Absence of Harm Reduction in American Drug Policy — 1996
Assessing the Legalization Debate — 1995
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
Drug Policies and Problems: The Promise and Pitfalls of Cross-National Comparison — 1993
Comparing Western European and North American Drug Policies: An International Conference Report — 1993
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