Prohibition, or pot for all?

Something needs to happen with our policy on illegal drugs. Consider the evidence:

The Problem of Definition
Criteria for determining what constitutes an illegal drug (as defined by the Controlled Substances Act):
1. Has a high potential for abuse,
and meets one of the following two requirements:
2. Has no currently accepted medical use and a lack of accepted safety,
or,
3. Has accepted medical use, but abuse may lead to severe psychological or physical dependency.

Well, fair enough, but why then are alcohol and tabacco excluded from the list of illegal substances? Do they not meet requirements 1 and 2? Basically, the answer to this question is that alcohol and tobacco are grandfathered in because they are are substances that have a long tradition of recreational use in Western European culture. Had the China or India colonized America, perhaps opium have been excluded from the list, or maybe peyote would be legal if Native American tribes had retained cultural control of the continent. Basically, it's subjective and hypocritical to set a coherent definition, like the one above, and then allow other substances that fall under the definitions to be exempted because our ancestors were in the habit of openly consuming said substances.

So, what should happen?
There are two solutions, as I see it:
1. Remove all exceptions from the rules,
or,
2. Rewrite the rules to relax the definition of and illegal substance

Let's take a look at each of these options.

Option 1: Prohibition, take 2
So what would happen if we applied the current rules fairly to all substances? Here is a point-by-point look at the consequences.

Cons
• Alcohol and tobacco become illegal. This is very bad for various sectors of the economy: bars, liquor stores, various agricultural companies, liquor and cigarette companies. Many jobs are lost
• While alcohol and tobacco consumption are reduced, a major blackmarket is opened up. The quality of the products are unregulated and therefore have the potential to cause health problems.
• The government is unable to tax the money spent on the blackmarket, and loses a lot of money in tax income that it received from taxes on tobacco and cigarette sales.
• People generally become more resentful towards the government.
• The secession of Kentucky (or is this a pro? Kidding, of course).
• Billions more dollars for the enforcement, prosecution, and dentention of offenders.

Pros
• The standing law is applied fairly, and does not place a particular culture's substance of choice above any other's.
• Addiction to tobacco and alcohol do not disappear, but are reduced
• Less deaths caused by drunk driving, other intoxication-related crimes
• A major financial foot-on-the-throat of the working class, addiction to cigarretees, is at least partially lifted.
• Less disease from second-hand smoke; cleaner dining establishments
• Billions of dollars in health care saved
• Millions of acres that are now taken up growing tobacco could be put to use growing grains to help supply food to the world and fuel to our engines


Option 2: Bong hits for all
I won't advocate that the Controlled Substance laws be removed entirely; I do believe that some protection from extremely potent psychoactive drugs is neccesary. However, perhaps criteria 2 and 3 could be redacted to read just:

2. Abuse may lead to severe psychological or physical dependency,

The legal defnition of "severe psychological or pysical dependency" would have to be explained as "causing a level of incapacity to as to prevent the user from performing such and such an activity", or maybe be defined in scientific terms as "a psychoactive negatively altering normal brain function to such and such a standard." This would create a clearly defined, no-exceptions definition that would legalize tobacco, alcohol, marjuana, peyote, and other mild substances while continuing to prohibit more dangerous drugs. A look at the benefits and drawbacks of this plan:

Cons
• Moral wrong? Some perceive marijuana to be on a different moral plane than alcohol or tobacco.
• More crime? This depends on how it's enforced. Crime related to drug dealing should go down, but it is possible that crime related to being under the influence would go up. This depends on the system for ensuring that the substances were sold in a manner that prevented them from being consumed in a dangerous way (ie, making sure there was a limited for potency), or if the system did not have an effective strategy to discourage the substance usage before operating a car, for example.
• Drug dealers out of work may need to turn to more violent sources of income
• More people using substances. This probably would not increase dramatically, but it would certainly go up some.

Pros
• Billions of government dollars saved in cost to enforce, prosecute, and detain minor drug offenders. Consequently, millions of people out of jail and able to help feed their family and bolster the work force, which would help the economy and decrease the need for welfare for the families who have a member incarcerated
• Less crime? See the discussion in the cons section.
• Billions of dollars made on taxing transactions that previously occured on the blackmarket.
• Regulation of currently-controlled substances lead to better standards of sanitation for the products--reduction in health problems from tainted or drugs
• The money that is currently flowing out of the country to fund various militias and cartels will be cut off.




So there it is. In summary: the system as it stands is hypocritical, and to ameliorate that problem would require adopting one of the two methods detailed above.