Now that Colorado and Washington have legalized recreational use of marijuana, it's time for Floridians to start talking seriously about doing the same.
Legalization won't come overnight. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found only 42 percent of Florida voters think recreational pot smoking should be legal, while 52 percent think it should continue to be proscribed.
Yet, opinions change. Not that long ago, the majority of Florida voters were dead set against casino gambling. Today, casinos are an accepted fact of life, particularly in South Florida.
In fact, it's time to consider calling a nationwide halt to the so-called "war on drugs," which President Richard Nixon declared in 1971. Given the rabid partisanship in the nation today, unfortunately, it's hard to even broach the subject of drug legalization without being branded as a liberal reprobate. Those shouting the invectives, however, should note some of the most effective advocates for ending the drug war were, and are, among the most articulate conservatives in the nation.
The late journalist and author William F. Buckley, the intellectual godfather of the modern conservative movement, was among those favoring an end to the drug war. George P. Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, recognizes the current approach to combating drug use has been a failure, and calls for decriminalization of drug use. The late Nobel laureate in economics, Milton Friedman, whose free-market thinking laid the groundwork for the Reagan economic revolution, advocated drug legalization.
Those who lived in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s remember the era of the cocaine cowboys. Director Brian De Palma's movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino, was a bit over the top, but not by much. The late Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro even served as a consultant for the film.
At one point, Miami-Dade had to lease a refrigerator truck to store the overflow from the morgue of those killed in battles among rival drug gangs. And who can forget the fellows rescued offshore, clinging to marijuana bales, which they claimed just happened to float by after their plane had gone down? The incident led to the proliferation of bumper stickers declaring, "Save the Bales."
The rampant crime resulted not from drugs, but from the drug war. The era ended with the concerted crackdown on South Florida drug dealers and the Colombian drug cartels. But guess what? The bad guys just shifted their primary focus to Mexico and the American Southwest. Meanwhile, illegal drugs still are readily available in South Florida.
Friedman would have found this predictable. The economist did an extensive analysis of illegal drugs. He concluded production costs were so small and profits so huge that law enforcement efforts to combat drugs would prove all but useless. Indeed, success in interdicting drugs limits supply, which increases costs and makes the trade even more lucrative.
That means there's more money with which to bribe police and judges, and to hire thugs to knock off the competition, along with innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. Politicians are now talking about how to reduce gun violence, but ending the drug war isn't even part of the conversation.
The prison population in the last 35 years has quintupled to 1.6 million, in part because of the war on drugs. Annually, governments at all levels spend about $40 billion fighting the un-winnable drug war. Think what that money could do to improve lives if it went toward education.
Proponents of the drug war claim drug use would increase dramatically with legalization, but would it? If heroin were legal, would you use it? Probably not. Alcohol is legal, but its use per capita is only about half that of the 19th century. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs around, yet legal tobacco use has dropped dramatically in recent years. Yet, even if drug use increases somewhat with legalization, the damage to society would be less than that spawned by the drug war.
Winding down wars isn't easy, as we've learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. But four decades of a failed war on drugs is enough. Legalizing and regulating marijuana, as we have scotch and vodka, would be a good place to start the unwinding.
Kingsley Guy's column appears every other Sunday. Email him at harborlite3@bellsouth.net.
