History has shown us that whenever you make a substance illegal, you drive up the cost and make criminals of users. First, just using makes them criminals. Second, a criminal record keeps even recovering users from finding employment that will sustain them and their families. Making criminals of manufacturers and purveyors makes sense, but making criminals of users does not. There is ample evidence that treating use as a public health problem in need of treatment is much more cost-effective than treating use as a crime in need of punishment. Treatment programs and drug courts make more sense than prisons and jails. Substance use is not about public safety, it is about public health. It only becomes a safety issue when you ignore the treatment needs of the user and force users into the criminal justice system. Treat substance use as the public health problem it is and you can free up your courts and save money, because treatment is always cheaper than incarceration. Prohibition should have taught us one thing: outlawing a behavior never works. In fact, prohibition makes the situation worse. Public health programs have a remarkable success record: clean water; mosquito abatement; no polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, or rubella; etc. Malaria used to be endemic to the South. When was the last time you heard of a case of malaria? Let’s get away from the “tried and failed” methods of the criminal justice system and start going with the “tried and true” methods of a health approach. As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” The choice is pretty clear. You can have taxpaying citizens in recovery or you can have tax-using citizens in jail. Seems a no-brainer to me.