“Addiction costs Oklahoma an estimated $7.2B a year” (News, March 10) was a nice addendum to your continuing coverage of Oklahoma's drug problem. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to solve a demand problem by spending money on the supply side. Consider how well the Volstead Act worked to stop the consumption of alcohol in the United States in the 1920s. Or how well the “War on Drugs” is now working. In the 1880s, Philadelphia economist Charles Sumner wrote this in regard to alcoholism: “Social evils tend to eliminate themselves.”
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In the United States generally, while more people die in automobile accidents than of drug usage, your article pointed out that in Oklahoma these dual menaces to life are equally dangerous. Is the solution the same? If we can eliminate loss of life due to drug usage by law, can't we also do the same for automobile deaths by outlawing the use of automobiles?
Both Sumner and social Darwinism tell us that if we do nothing about the drug problem it will go away. Let me step out of my day job role as a college philosophy teacher to assume the mantle of a prophet. The government legalized alcohol because it needed the tax revenue. It will legalize the use of drugs because that's the only way we'll be able to pay for national health care.
The pattern is already set: The Food and Drug Administration now regulates the use of tobacco, a substance that when used as recommended will guarantee reduction of the user's life span.
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Read more: http://newsok.com/drug-problem-could-be-fixed-by-legalization/article/3657915#ixzz1pG4pByR1
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