Abstract
This Article has argued that U.S. thinking about drug policy is inconsistent with the criminal law's rejection of any addiction defense and that the criminal law is right to reject that defense. Once society accepts that the choice to use drugs is not categorically different than the choice to consume many other consumer products with dangerous potentials and insidious long-term consequences, it is possible to see how misguided supply-side efforts have been. Supply-side enforcement wastes large quantities of resources with real economic opportunity costs, causes massive reductions in consumer welfare, and addresses the external costs of drug use inefficiently and indiscriminately. Society should instead measure the success of drug policy by the extent to which external harm is minimized and consumer satisfaction maximized, not by the number of users or the prevailing price of drugs.
Recommended Citation
Dripps, Donald A.
(2009)
"Recreational Drug Regulation: A Plea for Responsibility,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 2009:
No.
1, Article 5.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2009/iss1/5