Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1995
Abstract
Although I have fundamental disagreements with Professor Carrington even when his argument is reduced to its core, my purpose here is neither to defend every jot and tittle of national drug policy, nor to propose any sweeping personal vision of the place of recreational drugs in America. My ambitions are more modest. I suggest three premises: (1) Intelligent discussion of drug policy requires that we shed the image of law enforcement as warfare. (2) Instead, criminal narcotics prohibitions, penalties, and enforcement methods should be analyzed by the same standards which *939 govern any other type of crime. (3) If antinarcotics policies are conceived and crafted as ordinary law enforcement measures, the result is more likely to be humane, sustainable, and successful than either utopian legalization schemes or Wagnerian blitzkriegs against the evil drug lords among us.
Recommended Citation
Frank O. Bowman III, Playing "21" with Narcotics Enforcement: A Response to Professor Carrington, 52 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 937 (1995)