The fourth and final piece of Dalrymple’s series arguing against drug legalization is here. In this one, he argues (among other things) against the idea of a regulated market for drugs:

Supervision would entail, among other absurdities, a bureaucratic nightmare, an apparatus that would, inter alia, have to determine prices, not so low as to encourage consumption but not so high as to encourage the development of a black market, whose elimination was one of the main purposes of erecting the scheme of control in the first place. The authorities would also have to set up an inspectorate to determine the quality and purity of each drug, putting upon each drug the state’s implied seal of approval, so that consumers would know what they were getting. Moreover, consumption of at least some of these drugs would bring serious medical consequences, and alleviating these would also be the responsibility of the state (which is to say the taxpayers).