Some people say that if we legalize “drugs” in this country, everybody’s going to get high all the time. They might even point to Netherlands and tell you how the rates of marijuana users spiked after weed there was decriminalized. Well, that’s true – nobody really knows what would happen if marijuana or other drugs ever become available legally. But – we can try and project.

First of all, lets look at Netherlands: if there is any place that can provide at least a vague idea what might happen after an illicit drug starts being sold in coffeeshops – Netherlands (so far) would be it. It is true: after marijuana was decriminalized, the number of people using it went up. But – here’s an interesting detail: weed in Holland was decriminalized in 1976… and the rise in use didn’t occur until 1984. So what happened in the early 1980s? Coffeeshops were allowed to proliferate and advertise. Here’s what MacCoun and Reuter have to say about it:

We hypothesize that the dramatic mid-1980s escalation in Dutch cannabis use is the consequence of the gradual progression from a passive depenalization regime to the broader de facto legalization, which allowed for greater access and increasing levels of promotion, at least until 1995 when the policy was revised. In short, it reflects a shift from a depenalization era to a commercialization era.

Source: MacCoun, Robert J., Reuter, Peter, Drug War Heresies, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 259

In the 1990s though, the Dutch passed a series of regulations restricting advertisement of marijuana – and the number of marijuana users leveled out (and currently remains much lower, percentage-wise, than in the United States).

So – it seems like it’s not necessarily the availability of something that sells it, it’s the advertising! Well, any advertising executive could have told us that, right? And, governments seem to recognize it as well – just look at all the restrictions of advertising cigarettes and alcohol. Make a drug available to responsible adults, just don’t allow ads, which would convince and encourage people to buy it.

P.S. Would the First Amendment allow such restrictive measures against speech, albeit commercial one? While there does exist a doctrine of “commercial speech”, I truly think it’s irrelevant for our purposes. I believe the existing patchwork of regulations and voluntary industry action that restrict advertising for alcohol and tobacco should work fine for other prospective legal recreational drugs. However, even commercial speech doctrine as it now stands would probably allow severe restrictions on recreational drug advertising. For a brief treatment of the doctrine by the Supreme Court, see generally Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U.S. 52 (1942), Central Hudson Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Service Comm’n, 447 U.S. 557 (1980), Board of Trustees v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469 (1989), 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 116 S. Ct. 1495 (1996).