A journalism class research project on the first American drug epidemic got me thinking about how to solve the drug problem while maintaining an individual’s right to get blitzed. Here’s what I came up with. It’s a bit impractical given our current political/cultural climate, so I will call this column “If I Ruled the World.”
If I ruled the world, I would commission a panel of doctors, chemists, textbook writers and hard-core drug users to create authoritative manuals on each and every drug that is used recreationally. Each manual would contain everything there is to know about the given substance, and I don’t mean the D.A.R.E., scare-you-straight propaganda they feed us in school. These manuals would contain facts; facts on positive and negative side effects, facts on addictive properties, facts on the correct dosages for different desired effects with body weight factored in, and so on and so forth. Upon completion, I would sell the manuals to bookstores where they could be purchased, for a modest price, by any curious individual over the age of 18.
I would also repeal drug regulations and allow the major pharmaceutical companies, with the correct licensing, to traffic in “street drugs” once again. Because Bayer, Lilly and Pfizer can pay marijuana, coca and opium producers much more than drug cartels and crooked governments do now, the black market for these drugs would disappear and many third-world countries would get a major boost to their economies at the same time. Amphetamines, Ecstasy and LSD would still be cheap enough to make locally, but I can’t see many people buying a sack of crank made in Bubba Ray’s bathtub when legal, better quality stuff is available at Walgreens.
I would then set up offices for the newly created Department of Inebriate Licensing, or DIL for short, in every county, province and district. In the United States, I figure the easiest way to go would be to wall off a section of the DMV, which already has offices in every county in the nation. Anyone who wants to use a narcotic for non-medicinal purposes and has thoroughly studied the corresponding manual would then go to the local DIL office and take a test. The test would be long and difficult, but if a person is able to pass it, he or she would be declared an expert on the substance in question and be issued a license to purchase and consume that substance in any way they see fit.
To pay for all this, I would tax the hell out of everyone, every step of the way. Any narcotic purchased with a DIL card (as opposed to a prescription) would be considered a luxury item and taxed as such. The profits from the manuals and licenses, when combined with the taxes paid by the pharmaceutical companies, the pharmacists and finally John Q. Junkie himself, would be more than enough to pay for the entire project.
Eventually I would regulate all drugs this way, from alcohol to angel dust, earning my government untold amounts of money. Or maybe people would be turned off by the manuals and the warning labels and the stigma surrounding drug use for pleasure, and the number of drug users would decline. Either way the problem is solved. No more crime and violence surrounding the drug trade. No more people overdosing on meth cut with Ajax, or on Ecstasy that’s not really Ecstasy. I know it will never happen, but “If I ruled the world …”