Drug consumption is an unusual cultural phenomenon in that it receives both reverence or abhorrence and is regarded as both healer and destroyer. Although nonmedical drug use can unquestionably be detrimental to the individual, as both alcoholism, smoking, heroin addiction, and the consequences of other drug use make clear, nonmedical drug use does not invariably lead to damage, particularly among those who use drugs intermittently or in modest doses. While drug control laws tend to reduce the incidence of drug use, their enforcement has costs to society. Among the most obvious costs is the development of underground markets in drugs and the criminalization of drug users. Modest control laws can substantially reduce drug use without incurring serious social costs. However, increasing the severity of control laws adds less and less to the benefits achieved and more and more to the costs to society. Therefore, changes should be gradual, carefully considered, and guided not only by what drugs may do but also by what drug laws may do. 6 references