DRUG POLICY AND KO.

This article reviews the historic dynamics of drug control and the alternating cycle of availability and prohibition that has characterized the United States since the mid-eighteenth century. It evaluates the seemingly irreconcilable differences separating prohibitionist and decriminalization advocates, and analogizes the situation to the board game Go and the cyclic entrapment known as a ko. While recognizing that the likelihood of resolving these fundamentally oppositional viewpoints is not great, it offers that some potential pathways exist, through shifting the definition of drug abuse into a public health perspective, and adapting some of the control regimen currently employed in the regulation of alcohol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]