You Can't Win the Drug War if Alcohol is Legal
Did you hear about this wild booze riot in Michigan? The massive unruly crowd hurled bottles at the cops, who had to launch tear gas grenades just to break the thing up. Pete Guither observed hilariously that no one ever throws bongs and rolling papers at police. He's right, they don't.
Advocates for drug policy reform are fond of pointing out the hypocrisy of permitting limitless consumption of riot-inducing alcohol, while banning silly things like marijuana that make people draw pictures or eat nachos. And that's a legitimate point to make, as far as it goes. But it is rarely observed that the legality of alcohol, by its very nature, plays an important role in undermining other drug enforcement efforts.
For decades, illicit drug users have found cover amidst throngs of raging drunks. Alcohol is just stronger than most other recreational drugs. A decent percentage of alcohol users can just be counted on to go berserk at their preferred dosage, leading to screaming, fighting, vandalism, clumsy sex, and so on. It's not just stupid to arrest pot smokers in the midst of all this, it's impossible.
The pot smokers are the ones that get away when a party is raided. They're the ones chatting at a table in the corner while your drunk girlfriend is dancing on the bar. They're the ones that get home without incident on a Saturday night. You'll never find them puking or punching each other, so you'd better test their urine or catch 'em in a cloud of smoke, otherwise you'll never know what's up.
It's not a crime to be wasted as long as you found your buzz in a bottle not a bag, thus police have no authority to act simply because everyone in your house looks messed up. Instead, drug arrests happen primarily through the intrusive and time-consuming methods of sting operations and widespread consent searches. You can put bodies behind bars this way, but not nearly enough to win the war.
As long as it remains legal to get utterly obliterated on booze, the enforcement of other drug laws won't just look stupid and hypocritical. It won't even work.
Advocates for drug policy reform are fond of pointing out the hypocrisy of permitting limitless consumption of riot-inducing alcohol, while banning silly things like marijuana that make people draw pictures or eat nachos. And that's a legitimate point to make, as far as it goes. But it is rarely observed that the legality of alcohol, by its very nature, plays an important role in undermining other drug enforcement efforts.
For decades, illicit drug users have found cover amidst throngs of raging drunks. Alcohol is just stronger than most other recreational drugs. A decent percentage of alcohol users can just be counted on to go berserk at their preferred dosage, leading to screaming, fighting, vandalism, clumsy sex, and so on. It's not just stupid to arrest pot smokers in the midst of all this, it's impossible.
The pot smokers are the ones that get away when a party is raided. They're the ones chatting at a table in the corner while your drunk girlfriend is dancing on the bar. They're the ones that get home without incident on a Saturday night. You'll never find them puking or punching each other, so you'd better test their urine or catch 'em in a cloud of smoke, otherwise you'll never know what's up.
It's not a crime to be wasted as long as you found your buzz in a bottle not a bag, thus police have no authority to act simply because everyone in your house looks messed up. Instead, drug arrests happen primarily through the intrusive and time-consuming methods of sting operations and widespread consent searches. You can put bodies behind bars this way, but not nearly enough to win the war.
As long as it remains legal to get utterly obliterated on booze, the enforcement of other drug laws won't just look stupid and hypocritical. It won't even work.
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