Jim Rubens on Drugs

War on drugs is a flagrant $1 trillion policy failure

• Supply interdiction drives up violence and drug supplier profits.
• Global illegal drug demand is now $320 billion annually.
• Since 2006, drug trade violence stemming largely from U.S. demand has killed over 100,000 people in Mexico alone.
• Most drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire now involve fentanyl illegally manufactured in Mexico.
• U.S. taxpayers spent $7.5 billion in 2014 attempting to eradicate production of opium (the raw material for heroin) in Afghanistan, yet cultivation there has reached record levels, supplying 3/4 of global demand and occupying a cultivated land area the size of Rhode Island, and providing a major source of funding for the Taliban.

Legalize marijuana; drug-assisted treatment for opioids

For marijuana, Congress should grant states the power to legalize and regulate as they see fit like alcohol. I would then suggest (not mandate) that states require child-proof packaging and labels disclosing potency and health effects, including the fact that MJ use involves performance and brain developmental effects (though far less in the aggregate than tobacco or alcohol). I would also suggest banning advertising & public use, licensing in-state wholesale producers, allowing personal production in limited quantities, and extending DUI laws to cover marijuana metabolite blood levels.

Study marijuana harmfulness; then let states regulate it

A: Congress should commission the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether marijuana is significantly less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. If this is the case, I would support changing federal law so that the states are permitted to regulate marijuana use by adults and to tax sales as each state sees fit.