…in cocaine and marijuana use (helps explains electing Bush twice, we were all high). This comes as no surprise as we have the most strict anti-drug laws of the 17 countries surveyed. Our pot smoking is two times as high and our coke use is eight times as The Netherlands where these drugs are legal.

Anyone who has studied the effects of prohibitions on cultural behavior would predict this. Just compare alcoholism rates in the States to France where there is no drinking age. As Kerry Howley of Reason rightly points out, when you ban something, you make it taboo. In cultures where booze is part of daily life and isn’t restricted, binge drinking is virtually non-existent as a trend. The same logic holds for less dangerous drugs such as weed and blow. To paraphrase Howley, “Which is sexier, picking up your coke from the pharmacy along with your Paxal or snorting it off some girl’s a** in a nightclub?”

We also have the largest prison population in the world, more than half of which is non-violent drug offenders.