The matter is decided thus: the cost to society of prohibition outweighs the cost of legalization, or vice versa. It depends on how legalization is constructed (your ideas on the subject are at least responsible), and it depends on various assumptions, like a guesstimate of increased circulation, usage, and abuse under legalization. For reasons that do not quite add up to me, you think that legalization will not massively increase circulation, and the social costs are minimal, and the benefits of depriving criminals of control of the market therefore trumps. I think that we would be on the road to greater social chaos, and can ill afford the experiment. I do not know how we could determine the question, if neither of us finds the reasoning of the other persuasive on that crucial issue.
My point is that everyone starts somewhere, and it is easier to start when coke, for example, is a tenth of the price it was when I was a teenager, when it was considered a yuppie drug. Similarly, crack was a marketing ploy, to get an intense, comparatively low cost high to the masses. You can say that abusers will do whatever it takes, but what about those who have yet to experiment? And even your ordinary junkie is not exactly fit for big scores. A junkie mainly employs techniques like "smash and grab", where he goes through a car window and rips off the CD player. Since he can only get so many of those, and the resale or fence price is highly discounted, there is an objective limit to how much he can score. Similarly with prostitution: the market will bear only so much for a bj, and there is a limit to the amount of tricks turned in a day. At some point, an increase in price will flush out even the hardcore users, who will have to curtail dosage, at least, or seek rehabilitation.
As far as kids go: if the blackmarket persists around schoolyards, one has won nothing. The question is, is it easier or harder for pushers to operate under conditions of legalization. Despite the responsible strictures you want to impose on distribution, I cannot see that it would do anything but make it much easier, not mainly through resale, but mainly through corruption of the supply chain, and diversion of drugs into the black market from the legitimate market.
I will try to clarify my remarks on "tolerability". We accept that not all crime will be eliminated, for example. But as a society, we have to determine what is a tolerable level of crime. If we found the current level terribly intolerable, there would be aggressive moves to overturn Supreme Court decisions which are disadvantageous to the police. It is no good to say that for a crime victim, it is not tolerable. As a society, we have decided to live with certain levels rather than create more opportunity for the abuse of police powers. Some people think we have gone to far (I am among them), but I cannot gainsay that consensus is complacent. My argument is that that is what has happened with drugs. Society is more or less content with the current trade off.
Thus, my answer to your question is "yes and no". They want to stop the drug trade, but are willing to live with a certain volume rather than pay for the additional effort. |
