"The fact is, America really is crazy when it comes to drugs," said Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a 2014 TED Talk.
So what would happen if America actually ended its almost 52-year-old war on drugs? What can we learn from the example of Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs in 2000? What about Oregon, which decriminalized them in 2021? What if the U.S. not only decriminalized drugs by ceasing to prosecute users but actually legalized commercial sales? Is any of this even possible amid an opioid overdose crisis fueled by fentanyl?
Join Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern as they discuss all of these questions and more. Watch and leave questions and comments on the YouTube video above or on Reason's Facebook page.
VIDEO CLIPS:
- Excerpt from Zach Weissmueller's interview with Michael Shellenberger about his book San Fransicko
- Excerpt from Reason TV documentary on Oregon's Measure 110
SLIDES:
- Gallup: Americans' views on legalizing marijuana
- Washington Post: How Obama's Spending Plan Would Change the Drug War
- White House: Federal Drug Control Funding Priorities
- CDC: Drug-involved overdose deaths 1999-2021
- NIH: Opioid Addiction Numbers
- National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics: 30-day drug use in the U.S.
- Yale: What the needles said.
- Does the evidence support supervised injection sites?
- CBC: Supervised consumption sites "A System of Chaos"
- Alberta government study on supervised injection sites
- Harm Reduction Journal: Scrutinizing the Alberta study on supervised consumption sites
- Oregon Live: Oregon's Drug Decriminalization Sends Fewer than 1% to Treatment
- Drug deaths in Portugal and EU
- Pierre Anderson for the Swedish Drug Policy Centre: Decriminalization of Drugs. What Can We Learn from Portugal? (2020)
- Harper's: Legalize it All by Dan Baum
- Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) Modernizing Opioid Treament Access Act
The post Legalize All Drugs. Live With Ethan Nadelmann, Nick Gillespie, and Zach Weissmueller. appeared first on Reason.com.
