Thoughts on Drug Policy, Public Health, and Crime: More Support for Decriminalization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15845/bjclcj.v6i1.1551Abstract
In this paper I describe the nature of my interest in drug policy; discuss questions about whether and why drugs pose a public health problem; present some empirical results that bear on whether drug proscriptions might be justified because of their causal role in contributing to crime; hazard a few observations about how a society should deal with drug problems; and comment on the recent opiate epidemic plaguing much of the United States. My overall conclusion is that a good rationale for drug prohibitions has yet to be found, and the liberal alternative to criminalization, which recommends that drug use be treated as a public health problem, is problematic as well---even though it certainly would be an improvement on the status quo.
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Copyright (c) 2018 Douglas Husak
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.