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Legalization doesn’t mean endorsement. Cigarettes, liquor, and prescription drugs such as Valium are now legal, though neither government nor society endorses their use. Any citizen can now endanger his health with cigarettes (and 300,000 people die each year from smoking-related illnesses). Or make a mess of his life with whiskey (alcohol abuse costs us more than $100 billion a year). Or take too many Valiums and die. These drugs, however, have become respectable over the years. State banquets are often marked by the drinking of toasts, in which the drug called liquor is offered in honor of the distinguished visitor. Business, politics, and love affairs are often conducted with the lubricant of alcohol. I have no patience anymore for drunks, and I can’t abide the company of cokeheads and junkies. But every sensible citizen must recognize that the current system under which some drugs are legal and others are not is hypocritical.

I think a ten-year experiment with legalization is worth the risk. If it doesn’t accomplish its goals, legislators could always go back to the present disastrous system. And we might learn that we can live without hypocrisy.

The strongest argument for legalization is economic. We simply don’t have the money to deal with eliminating supply or demand. Too many Americans want this stuff, and we are again falling into the trap created by Prohibition: We try to keep people from buying things they want, we cite moral reasons as our motives, and we create a criminal organization that will poison all of our lives for decades. The old mob was the child of Prohibition. A new mob, infinitely more ruthless, is certain to come out of the present crisis. That can be prevented by eliminating the illegal profits that fund and expand the power of the drug gangs.

How would legalization work? A few possibilities:

1. Marijuana — not a hard drug, of course, but described as one in the debate — could be the first to be legalized. About 20 million Americans smoke grass on a regular basis and about 400,000 are arrested every year for possession. Mark Kleiman, former director of policy analysis for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, estimates that legalizing the sale of marijuana would save about $500 million in law-enforcement costs and produce about $7 billion in revenues. Those numbers alone should settle this part of the argument.

Pot could be sold openly in licensed liquor stores all over the country (legalization must be national; if it were limited to New York, every pothead, cokehead, and junkie in the country would soon arrive here). All laws now applicable to selling liquor (used legally by 100 million Americans) would apply to marijuana. Citizens would be arrested for driving under the influence. The weed could not be sold to minors. Advertising would be restricted. All taxes — including those on domestic farmers and importers — would be applied to drug treatment, education, and research for the duration of the ten-year experiment.

2. Heroin could be legalized a year later, dispensed through a net work of neighborhood health stations and drugstores. While the old British system of registering addicts was in effect, the number of those receiving daily maintenance doses was low (about 500 in London). In the late sixties, the system was changed. The number of dispensing doctors was reduced nationwide to a few hundred (from thousands), and new registered addicts were required to enter methadone programs. The number of addicts soared. Obviously, the old system was better.

After legalization, this vile drug would be banned from commercial sale. The price would be very low (25 cents a dose), perhaps even free. All current addicts would have to register within six months of the passage of the enabling legislation. They would be supplied with identity cards resembling driver’s licenses, showing their faces. They would also be given the opportunity to go drug-free through a greatly expanded system of treatment centers (funded by the marijuana tax and import fees). Their records would be kept confidential, but they would have to register.

Presumably, this would accomplish two things: (i) take the profits out of heroin sales and (2) contain the present addict population. Most junkies support their habits by dealing; they create new addicts to have more customers. There would be no economic point to creating new junkies. The street junkie also would gain relief from the degrading process of making his day’s connection. He would stop stealing from old ladies, his family, and strangers. He would no longer have to risk AIDS infection by sharing works.