What if the government held a billion-dollar competition to create a safe and effective designer drug? Greg Beato thinks it’s a great idea:
Pipe dream? Certainly innovation has never been a part of the federal government’s drug policy mandate. In 1986, in response to “designer drugs” intended to mimic the effects of heroin and other illegal drugs, Congress passed legislation making it illegal to produce substances that are “substantially similar,” or chemical “analogues,” to Schedule I and Schedule II drugs. …
[But] imagine if, instead of trying to thwart the entrepreneurs behind products like “Bomb Marley Jungle Juice” and “AK-47 Cherry Popper,” the [Office of National Drug Control Policy] tried to actively incentivize them, by offering a billion-dollar prize to the first manufacturer who successfully produces the kind of safely domesticated mood enhancer that Dr. Siegel envisioned 25 years ago. Under the current regulatory environment, manufacturers are only rewarded for creating substances that are different enough from existing Schedule I drugs to claim, at least temporarily, shelf space in head shops, gas stations, and cyberspace. A billion-dollar prize for a safer intoxicant would give them a tangible reason to aim much higher.
The Dish 