A few days ago, I questioned Justice Thomas’s statement that “[U]nder the [Controlled Substances Act], certain drugs that present a high risk of abuse and addiction but that nevertheless have an accepted medical use — drugs like morphine and amphetamines — are available by prescription. No one argues that permitting use of these drugs under medical supervision has undermined the [Act’s] restrictions.”
I had meant to blog a link to Mark Kleiman’s thoughts on the subject, but it fell through the cracks. But better late than never; check it out. Here are some excerpts:
It depends, both on the rigor of controls on prescription drugs and on the availability of non-pharmaceutical supplies of the drug in question or substitutes for it.
Dexamphetamine used to leak massively from the prescription market into the illicit market . . . .
Morphine doesn’t leak much because there’s not much illicit demand for it, but hydromophone (dilaudid) and miperidine (Demerol) are much sought-after as heroin substitutes.
The semi-synthetic opioids hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (Percodan, Oxycontin) have thriving diversion markets. . . .
In the cannabis case, insofar as the “buyers’ clubs” function as convenient retail outlets, they may do a little bit to increase the availability of pot for non-medical use, though of course the places most receptive to the presence of such clubs tend to be the places where strictly illicit cannabis is easiest to obtain. But the ubiquity of the illicit cannabis supply, in both geographic and social space, greatly reduces the impact of making it medically available. . . .
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