We understand the problem—drug prohibition in the United States is a century-old, bloody, expensive, catastrophic mistake. We completely screwed up, making things worse for people in this country and all over the world. (I won't rehearse the argument in this post. But if you're curious, you can find it here.)

We know what went wrong, so our next big question is what a post-prohibition nation would look like. Would high-school students be buying heroin in 7-11—as opposed to the parking lot behind 7-11, which is where they're buying it right now?

No. And Mark Haden, who works with Vancouver Coastal Health, has put up an invaluable Q and A for a post-prohibition Canada/North America. It's an excellent place to start the conversation and required reading for anyone who cares about drugs—users, dealers, narcotics agents, policymakers, journalists, everyone. A few of my favorite lines in the eight-page paper:

As in alcohol prohibition, dealers and smugglers prefer concentrated products so in times of prohibition weaker, less harmful products are not available. The fact that a drug can be dangerous is the best reason to regulate and control it.

The current situation is one where mainstream society has no control. We do not control the purity or concentration of the drug, the context, the method of use... [In a regulated market] concentrated, smokable preparations would be more restricted than weaker oral solutions.

...heavy reliance on drug law enforcement to cut supplies is an expensive way of making a bad problem even worse. Drug trafficking feeds on the oxygen of profits and drug-law enforcement makes drug trafficking even more lucrative.

Click here and then on the link "questions and answers for a regulated market" to read the whole thing. Also check out his excel spreadsheet for "drug control systems," showing the ways that meth, alcohol, opiates, coca leaves/powder, tobacco, and the rest would be variably regulated under his ideal system.