CHEBEAGUE ISLAND — With upcoming votes regarding the legalization of marijuana in South Portland and Lewiston, the arguments have been going back and forth regarding the wisdom of such a move.

Both Portland Press Herald columnist M.D. Harmon (“Before legalizing marijuana, Maine should consider the cost,” Oct. 10) and Stephanie Anderson, district attorney for Cumberland County (“Maine Voices: Untruths about marijuana point to serious implications of legalizing it,” Oct. 21), have argued against such a move.

Arguments against legalization rest on an unstated premise: If some people abuse certain substances (such as some drugs), or they abuse certain freedoms (such as gambling), then those activities should be constrained for all, in order to help those people who encounter problems. Here I suggest an alternative approach that also addresses such problems, without limiting the freedom of the rest of the population.

Many people engage in various forms of self-destructive or maladaptive behavior, including compulsive gambling, overdrinking, smoking, lack of exercise, eating too much poor-quality food, getting into debt and spending too much time on the Internet.

There are two ways to deal with such problems from a social policy perspective: Either constrain or tax them, or teach people techniques to control their behavior and let those with problems experience the negative consequences.

Limiting the number of casinos, outlawing alcohol to those under 21 and Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to tax sugary drinks of 64 ounces are cases of the first approach. The second approach, for which I argue here, is less often heard. Nevertheless, it merits a hearing.

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 First, notice that the attempt to constrain or tax certain activities often fails. The deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger, to name just a few cases, should serve notice that drugs are readily available to many people.

 Second, there can be negative side effects, among which I would include large sums of money going to drug cartels and the deaths of thousands of innocent bystanders, particularly in Mexico, as well as a flow of people to this country trying to escape such violence.

 Third, a drug offense can damage a person’s future prospects with regard to education, employment and housing. At the very least, the war on drugs should raise a few questions.

As an alternative, let me suggest an approach with few of the above problems.

Begin training young people in techniques of self-control. In order to see how this could work, consider a typical school day in elementary or high school. There are fixed starting times, class periods and lunch hours. Every student moves in lockstep from September to June, regardless of effort or aptitude.

The effect of such a regimented schedule is to wipe out most initiative and exploration on the part of students, turning them into “excellent sheep” (as former Yale professor William Deresiewicz puts it).

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Curiously, a similar regimentation is at work in our prisons, where prisoners get up and do everything else on cue (see http://tinyurl.com/mnghu86 for the case of North Carolina). With respect to prisons, it is little wonder that recidivism is so prevalent, because prisoners have so little chance to learn useful habits.

With respect to schooling, suppose that students needed to acquire certain skills and knowledge before their school year ended. Some who worked harder would get out earlier, leaving those needing extra help with less competition for teachers’ attention toward the end of the year.

Under such circumstances, I suggest, few students would spend days smoking marijuana or drinking beer, even if they could get away with it. (In order to see our current approach to underage drinking, see “Portland High School replaces graduation speaker over Facebook post,” May 31.) And those who did act irresponsibly would experience the negative consequences of doing so. But the failure of a few would not take away from the freedom of the rest.

With respect to the question of legalization of marijuana, then, I suggest a cautious liberalization of such laws, in conjunction with a new emphasis on teaching self-control to students. Giving students greater freedom to fail or succeed, based on their own behavior, would teach a valuable lesson that is currently being missed. Our war on drugs is a futile attempt to patch up our failure to teach this skill.

— Special to the Press Herald


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