Experimenting with drugs in the US

THE war on drugs is far from over, but we may be seeing the beginning of the end - at least for cannabis. On 6 November, two US states voted to legalise the drug, putting it on a similar footing to alcohol and tobacco (see "Cannabis legalisation launches living laboratory"). Colorado and Washington thus became the first states anywhere in the world to legalise an illegal psychoactive substance since war was formally declared in 1971.

One of the reasons legalisation passed was the failure of the status quo. If the main aim of drug policy is to reduce consumption, prohibition has not worked. It has arguably been counterproductive, putting a lucrative trade into the hands of violent gangs, saddling millions of people with criminal records, expending vast amounts of money and distracting attention from harm reduction. This has been obvious for years, but the taboos surrounding prohibition have remained largely unbroken.

Until now. Colorado and Washington have jumped first, but similar moves are afoot elsewhere, especially in Latin America.

What happens next will exert a huge influence over international drug policy. If legalisation does what its supporters say it will - reduce consumption and policing costs while raising revenues - the prohibitionist position will be further weakened.

But it could go the other way. Prohibitionists expect marijuana use to rise, and they may be proved right. Legal drugs are consumed at vastly higher rates than illegal ones, and where marijuana possession is decriminalised - meaning the police turn a blind eye - use tends to rise.

But there is also evidence in the other direction. When Portugal decriminalised possession of all drugs in 2001, there were dire warnings of an epidemic of use. Those fears proved groundless.

The bottom line is that we don't yet know what legalising marijuana will achieve. Supporters of a more rational, evidence-based drug policy (including this publication) have long seen legalisation as one possible alternative to prohibition. The bold experiment being undertaken by the people of Colorado and Washington will soon tell us whether we are right.

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