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You even could tax the sale of now-illegal drugs and use the money to build more treatment centers, which are desperately needed. Deep thinkers have long advocated lifting the prohibition on drugs. Last year the debate was stirred anew when Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke called for a serious national debate on the subject.
你甚至可以向現在非法的毒品交易征稅，用這筆稅金來修建更多的康復中心，這正是社會迫切需要的。深入思考毒品問題的人們長期以來一直主張解除對毒品的禁令。去年，當巴爾的摩市市長庫爾特·施莫克呼吁就這一問題進行一場全國性的嚴肅認真的辯論時，重新引發了圍繞這一問題的嚴肅的討論。
Schmoke's advocacy was based on his experience as a drug prosecutor. He felt as though he was bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon. Prohibition of drugs is working no better than prohibition of liquor worked earlier this century, he told Congress. It increases crime without eliminating addiction. So let's change the rules.
施莫克的主張是基于他作為一名毒品檢察官的經歷而提出的。他覺得當時的禁毒工作如同用湯匙向外舀海水。他向國會指出，禁毒工作與本世紀早些時候的禁酒行動一樣收效甚微，非但沒有消滅毒癮，反而使得犯罪率上升。因此，我們應該改變規則。
He was not alone in his sentiments. "Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse—for both the addict and the rest of us," wrote Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman in 1972, after President Nixon declared a "war" on drugs.
他并不是唯一堅持這種觀點的人。在尼克松總統宣布進行一場反對毒品的“戰爭”后，諾貝爾獎獲得者經濟學家米爾頓·弗里德曼在1972年寫道，禁毒本來是要解決問題的，可是對于吸毒者和我們其他人來說，它只能使情況變得更加糟糕。”
The simplicity of this prescription has proved irresistible to many. Unfortunately, the simple beauty of such logic has an ugly gaping hole. There is considerable evidence to suggest that with legalization drug use and its social costs would increase. Sharply. Keeping drugs illegal may not eliminate them, but it almost surely reduces their use.
這種簡單的解決方法看來對許多人產生了巨大的誘惑力。令人遺憾的是，這種邏輯的優點是簡單，但有一個令人討厭的大漏洞。許多證據表明，如果實現毒品合法化，毒品的使用及其社會成本將會增加，而且是急劇增加。使毒品交易非法可能不會使毒品消失，但幾乎可以肯定的是會減少毒品的用量。
