In the early 90s the Congress decided to slap a luxury tax on yachts, 10% of the retail price. They reasoned that yachts are bought by rich people, who are not very sensitive to small price increases. The problem is that they were wrong, the yacht market depends on a lot of affluent people who are price sensitive, when it involves tens of thousand of dollars. Shipyards for such items were devastated. It nearly sank the industry.
You keep supposing that the hard core junkie is the sole customer, and that he is not price sensitive. However, the extent of the drug market depends on relatively casual users, and it is from their ranks that serious abuse comes. They are sensitive to price differences, put money in the coffers of criminal gangs, and sometimes develop a real jones for the stuff. Increase price, decrease users; decrease users, decrease gang revenues; decrease revenues, decrease the size and power of gangs; also, decrease users, decrease abuse.
There will always be a blackmarket for children, as they are already targets; and, I imagine, there will be a "grey market, full of people curious to use, but unwilling to declare themselves addicts in order to experiment. People will come along willing to help, for a consideration. They are the pushers. Shipments will be redirected, corruption will just find a new set of names for the pad.
My position comes to this: if people want to kill themselves, or lose their wits, they should be discouraged, or at least not abetted, by the government. Additionally, society ought to be on the defensive, lest their recklessness and witlessness add to the suffering of family, friends, and by- standers.
It is always possible that a hard core abuser will move to more lucrative crime. I am just pointing out that they are not exactly a bunch of Lex Luthers running around, and there is an objective limit to their ability to raise funds, which will likely be reached early.
Perhaps crack was the light- bulb. It is interesting, though, that affluent whites still tend to prefer powdered cocaine and inner city blacks tend to prefer crack. (Remember all the brouhaha about sentencing disparities, which had a disparate impact on white's and black's)?
The rest depends upon our divergent views on the likelihood of legalization causing a massive expansion of use. I do not know if there is any way to convince you that even with precautions, there will be plenty who profit by pushing contraband, mainly redirected from legal supply channels. I think we have both represented our positions pretty well. Perhaps it is irresovable in a forum like this........ |
