<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 9"> <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 9"> <link rel=File-List href="cid:filelist.xml@01C2C499.37C0FC70">  <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'> <div class=Section1> Nobody here seems to have noticed that, by accident, we in the United States have stumbled onto a basically rational approach to the most dangerous drug of all, the one that kills hundreds of thousands yearly. It continues to be legal to sell, possess, and to abuse nicotine, but only to do so in ways that do not harm others. In other words, abuse of this substance is regulated in a non-criminal context, while the abuser is more and more stigmatized and despised.<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> The merit of this approach is its adaptation to the particularities of nicotine’s psychopharmacology and the harm tobacco fumes do.<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> The point for other substances is that each substance needs a form of regulation specific to its characteristics. There needs to be a discussion of the appropriate form of regulation for each. In the case of alcohol, for example, we could follow the example of, if I recall, some of the European countries, that allow minors to buy fermented beverages, while somewhat restricting their purchasing hard liquor.<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> Really scary drugs like crack tend to exist because of criminalization of milder versions of the same basic intoxicants. I.E. the illegality of all forms of coca means somebody who’s bought a bale of coca leaves will have it cooked down to a really potent powder so as to import it in a condom in somebody’s guts rather than have the original bale shipped in by air freight from South America. Legalizing coca leaves might tend to diminish the demand for crack. In the meantime, a regulated decriminalization of crack might involve setting up crackhouses, with free crack available to any crackhead, but with the proviso that one could only get cracked out there if one agreed to accept treatment immediately upon reaching a point of satiation. Another advantage to this would be, of course that such official crackhouses would obviously be under medical supervision so as to minimize the cardiac events consequent upon crack abuse.<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> There would be analogous approaches to each other drug.<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema<o:p></o:p> <![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p> </div> </body> </html>