如果有一天 大麻合法化了

While the debate about legalisation of cannabis is endlessly fascinating, it obscures the vital question of how to design a system of legal availability.

虽然关于大麻合法化的辩论总能激起人们的兴趣，但它遮盖了一个重要问题：如何设计出一套合法供应的体系？

Prohibition produces some very bad results. It deprives millions of people of the liberty to pursue what would be, for them, a harmless pleasure. It creates an illicit market that delivers tens of billions of dollars a year to criminals. It leads to large numbers of arrests (mostly for possession for personal use) and a smaller but substantial number of incarcerations (mostly for growing or dealing). The black market fuels corruption and violence worldwide.

禁令带来一些很糟糕的后果。它剥夺了数以百万计的人无害享乐的自由。它滋生了非法市场，每年几百亿美元落入犯罪分子手中。有许多人被捕（多数是因为持有大麻自用），还有数目较少但仍相当可观的人入狱（多数是因为种植或交易大麻）。黑市在全球各地助燃着腐败和暴力。

On the other hand, prohibition maintains high prices, discouraging heavy use and use by minors. The problem is how to shed the harms of prohibition while minimising the harms of legalisation. The desirable outcomes are cannabis available to adults who want to use it in moderation and abolition of the illicit trade but without significant increases in habitual heavy use or in more-than-occasional use by minors. Alas, current legalisation efforts in the US, replacing prohibition with commercial production and sale after the fashion of alcohol, have little prospect of getting us there.

另一方面，禁令的好处是，它维持了大麻的高价，从而减少了大量使用大麻和未成年人使用大麻的现象。问题是怎样既能消除禁令的弊端，又能尽量减少合法化的危害。理想的结果是，让想要适度吸食的成年人能够获得大麻，从而取缔非法交易，同时又不导致习惯性滥服大麻或是未成年人频繁吸食大麻的情况显著增加。可惜的是，美国当前的合法化努力方向是用商业生产和销售取代禁令，就像对待酒类那样，这意味着实现上述目标的机会渺茫。

Some rise in problem use is inevitable if cannabis becomes cheaper and more available. But a move to commercialisation multiplies the risks. A licit industry would be financially dependent on the minority of consumers who become chemically dependent, just as the alcohol industry derives most of its revenue from periodic binge drinkers and chronic alcoholics. Alcohol and cannabis follow the 80-20 law: 20 per cent of the user population accounts for 80 per cent of sales, and most of those heavy users suffer from substance abuse. The commercial interests of the cannabis industry would therefore be in direct conflict with the public interest, and the industry would have both means and motive to use its muscle to resist measures to limit drug abuse.

如果大麻价格降低、供应增加，滥用的现象难免会上升。但商业化之后，风险会成倍增加。合法化的行业将在经济上依赖一小部分上瘾的顾客，正如酒业的营收大多来自经常豪饮者和长期酗酒者一样。酒类和大麻均适用“80-20定律”：20%的顾客群贡献80%的销售额，大部分“重度消费者”有物质滥用问题。因此，大麻行业的商业利益将与公共利益直接冲突。该行业将有动机和手段来阻挠限制滥用的措施。

Cannabis is naturally cheap; only prohibition makes it expensive. The Rand Corporation’s Drug Policy Research Center in the US has estimated the free-market price at no more than 10 per cent of the current illicit-market price. Since an hour stoned already costs less than an hour drunk, casual users would gain little from lower prices – even now the cost barely registers in their personal budgets. But for cash-strapped teens and heavy users, a cost of pennies per cannabis cigarette would be an invitation to dive in; and a for-profit industry would reinforce that invitation with relentless promotion.

大麻本来很便宜，只是禁令才让它值钱。美国兰德公司(Rand Corporation)毒品政策研究中心(Drug Policy Research Center)估计，自由市场的价格不会超过目前非法市场价格的10%。既然沉迷于一小时大麻影响的成本已经比买一小时的醉便宜，偶尔享用的消费者很难从降价中获得什么好处——即使是现在，抽大麻在他们的预算里也占不了多大份量。但对于大量吸食的消费者和囊中羞涩的青少年而言，几分钱一根的大麻烟将非常诱人。而谋求利润的行业将用不断的促销加强这种诱惑。

High taxes and tight marketing restrictions might, in principle, curb the damage. But why should we expect such measures to surmount industry opposition? Here, again, the case of alcohol provides fair warning.

征收重税和严格限制营销在理论上可能会控制住危害。但凭什么认为这些措施能战胜行业的反对？在这方面，酒类的案例再次提供了合理的警告。

A large increase in problem use might be a price worth paying to rid ourselves of the many ills attendant on prohibition. But it is not a price we have to pay. Smarter policies could lead to better outcomes.

为摆脱禁令带来的诸多弊病，滥用大麻现象的大幅增加或许是值得付出的代价，但这并不是非得付出的代价。更明智的政策有望产生更好的效果。

Legal production and sale could be restricted to consumer co-operatives; to not-for-profit enterprises with trustees charged with preventing abuse; or to a state monopoly run as a branch of the health service rather than the revenue agency. Non-commercial vendors would be less likely to offer cannabis-infused sweets in packaging that mimics children’s sweets or infuse cannabis into fruit-flavoured drinks, as now offered by the “medical marijuana” industry in the US.

合法产销的范围可以限定于：消费者合作社，有受托人负责防止滥用的非盈利企业，或者一个国有垄断机构，作为医疗服务（而非税务部门）的某个分支来运行。非商业的供应商不太可能会像目前美国的“医用大麻”行业那样，售卖富含大麻成分、包装模仿儿童糖果的甜食，或是将大麻成分加入果味饮料。

One measure to limit abuse – consistent with either commercial or non-commercial distribution – would be user-set personal periodic limits on consumption: an instance of the “libertarian paternalist” strategy of “nudges” toward sensible behaviour.

有一项限制滥用的措施既适合商业经销，又适合非商业经销：让消费者自己设定在一个周期内的消费量。这是“自由意志家长主义”将人们向理智行为“轻推”的体现。

Almost no one plans to become a heavy daily user. Abuse is the accretion of countless undramatic decisions, each taken under the lure of current amusement, pleasure or relief, and neglecting the future. If each user, on starting to purchase cannabis, were required to choose a personal monthly quota, to be enforced by retailers, users’ long-term interests might have a fighting chance of competing with short-term impulses. Persuading people to set such limits would require persuading them that they are at risk of falling prey to cannabis abuse. Users could increase their limit but only with, say, two weeks’ notice; in the meantime, retailers would be required to dishonour purchase requests above the limit.

几乎没有人希望每天吸食很多大麻。滥用是无数个小决定的累积，每个小决定则来自及时行乐（不管是消遣、追求快感还是放松）、忘记未来的诱惑。如果每位消费者在开始购买大麻时被要求选择每月的消费量，并由零售商执行，那么消费者的长期利益或许有机会与短期冲动较量一番。既然要说服人们为自己设限，就需要说服他们认识到陷入大麻滥用的风险。消费者可以提高自己的限额，但必须事先通知（如提前两周）。与此同时，零售商将必须拒绝超限的购买请求。

User-set limits would impinge on no one’s liberty; a consumer who did not want such protection could simply set a high limit to start with. Of course, some would do so, and some would progress to dependency by repeatedly raising their personal quotas. But others, made mindful of the fact that their consumption was exceeding their original intentions, might leave the limits in place, using them as props to moderation.

让消费者自己设定限额，不会妨碍任何人的自由：不希望得到保护的消费者只需一开始将限额设高即可。当然，有人确实会这样做，也有人会一再提高个人限额，慢慢上瘾。但其他人在意识到自己的消费量正在超过最初指标之后，可能不去修改限额，而是把它当作促进节制的机制。

Perhaps continued prohibition is the worst option. But turning the business over to a money-hungry industry might well be the second worst. Why not choose better?

继续禁止大麻或许是最糟糕的选择。但将生意完全交给唯利是图的行业，恐怕是第二糟糕的选择。为何不选择更好的方案？