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 5/10 Good --- thecurrent.theatlantic.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/theatlantic/TZRn
Thursday, May 08, 2008 --- 78 days ago http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/higher-learning.php
| Ninety-six students were arrested in a San Diego State University drug bust. Where's Captain Renault when you need him? I'm shocked, shocked , to learn that drug dealing is rampant at fraternities at San Diego State (one of Playboy 's top 10 party schools). Actually, what shocks me is the price the student dealers were charging for cocaine: $35 a gram. In my college days almost 30 years ago, at a small, northeastern liberal-arts school with a less illustrious party heritage, a gram cost $100. So in constant dollars, the price of cocaine has fallen by 85 percent, to about $16 a gram -- imagine how many more coke-fueled novels Jay McInerney could have written at that price! You'd have to be sucking on a doobie as big as a submarine to think our current drug-control policies work: from 1982 to 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration's budget increased roughly tenfold, the national arrest rate for drug offenses more than doubled (from 286 per 100,000 to 600 per 100,000) ... and a dangerous drug like cocaine became dramatically less expensive. Meanwhile, busts for the possession of marijuana, which also figured prominently in the San Diego State investigation, still account for the most drug arrests in this country.
The war on drugs not only wastes law-enforcement resources, it also corrodes our respect for the law in general. Using a relatively benign drug like marijuana should become a regulated pastime, indulged i ... |
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