(“cheaper drugs = more drug use”) by introducing the factor of market saturation. It’s possible that drug legalization wouldn’t be as hazardous as I fear because – when it comes to spacey, tweaky goofs – America’s already got them . AN EXPERIENCE EXPERIMENT Maybe I should have more faith in the beneficent self-organizing characteristics of a free society. A free society has ways, other than calling the police, to deal with problems of social well-being. The three-martini lunch is long gone from the business world. Not because it was outlawed, but because of what a non-Irish lawyer friend of mine who worked with a lot of Irish lawyers on Wall Street told me 40 years ago. He said, “I know it’s time to quit talking business with the Irish lawyers when they start putting out their cigarettes in the butter.” The historian W.J. Rorabaugh, whose American Hippies book I cited in this issue’s “Letter From the Editor,” also wrote a study of American drinking trends called The Alcoholic Republic . So named for good reason. According to figures from Rorabaugh’s research, at the time of the American Revolution, per capita consumption among the Thirteen Colonies’ drinking-age population (15+) was about 6.5 gallons of alcohol per year. Rorabough is talking about 100% alcohol. By 1830 that per capita consumption had risen to 7.1 gallons. Assuming 80 proof hooch (40% alcohol), 7.1 gallons is 2,272 1½ ounce bartending jiggers, enough for more than six
Furthermore, the high price of illegal drugs has always been more than monetary... Meeting shady characters in sketchy neighborhoods. Policemen with dogs that want to play a really bad game of “fetch.” A purchased substance that may be 20-toke-am- I-high-yet? ditch weed or may be dried parsley laced with fentanyl and Drano. Fear, as well as cash, is a price to be paid. And legalization combined with the checks and balances of market forces would dramatically reduce it. Many more Americans will be going around spaced-out, tweaked-up, and goofing on their buzz. This will not be a “good life choice” for most of them. Rigidly libertarian logic means being tempted into a “Social Darwinism” argument. There will be non-survival of the un-fittest. The spacey, the tweaky, and the goofy will orbit their lost planets, speed at 100 mph towards their brick walls, and goof-off into the graveyard. I don’t have the stomach for that kind of reasoning. Too many people are too vulnerable to addiction and dependence, not to mention stupidity. I’ve got a person like that in my own family. He’s headed for the six-pack in the fridge right now. Get back to your keyboard, you knucklehead! On the other hand, the Journal of American Medicine reports that 16.7% of American adults – one in six – take some kind of legally prescribed psychiatric drugs, mostly antidepressants. This complicates the simple economics of the thought experiment
American Consequences 39
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