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Advisory Reports, Part 1: Why Cocaine and Heroin Should Be Decriminalized

NCJ Number
110636
Author(s)
J Ostrowski
Date Published
1987
Length
37 pages
Annotation
Cocaine and heroin should be decriminalized because drug prohibition has failed and is extremely costly.
Abstract
Decriminalization will not solve the drug problem entirely, but is offered as a solution to the distinct set of problems such as crime, violence, corruption, AIDS, and dangerous drugs, caused not by the biochemical effects of illegal drugs, but by the attempt to fight drug use by means of the criminal justice system. Each dollar spent enforcing drug laws and fighting the street crime these laws stimulate is a dollar which cannot be spent fighting other violent crime. The profit derived from the drug trade goes principally to organized criminals. Another consequence of prohibition is its effects on civil liberties, i.e. urine testing, strip searches, and preventive detention. Legal drug use would involve nonlethal doses, nonpoisoned drugs, clean needles, and warning labels. Users would be free to seek medical attention or counseling, if needed, and would not be alienated from family and friends as many are now. Long-term trends in legal drug use, such as use of alcohol and tobacco, suggests that there would not be any substantial increase in drug use under decriminalization. Footnotes.

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