Paul B. Stares

About the author: Paul B. Stares is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C., where his expertise includes drug policy. Stares is also the author of Global Habit: The Drug Problem in a Borderless World.

Whenever people discuss the drug problem in the United States, some argue for tougher laws and stiffer penalties while others claim that because the government is losing the war on drugs and prohibition encourages crime, drugs should be legalized. However, an actual study of the regulatory alternatives is necessary to evaluate whether legalization would be an effective policy. The government must study what drugs would be legalized and in what form they would be available; who would produce the legal drugs and how...