Heck, I didn't think anyone would respond till tomorrow (I'm pooped).
That's what I see as the problem too Bill. If a politician was to get realistic about it and propose legalizaion, because of a largely reactionary public, he would be shooting his own foot. When judges and law enforcement officials are calling for repeal of prohibition sooner or later someone is going to do something about it. There are some very notable people speaking out now:
»Becker and Posner on Drugs
3 months ago I pondered over a comprehensive model of drug legalisation that would both reduce the social harms resulting from the criminalisation of the drug trade, and the expected health fallout from increased drug consumption. Of course, such a task was beyond the grasp of a simple student.
A recent post on the Becker-Posner blog confronted that very problem. Of course, I can console myself that I failed not because I wasn’t pushing hard enough, but because I’m not Gary Becker or Richard Posner . After all, one is a distinguished professor of economics at University of Chicago, the other a judge sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, AND a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law school. You’d think that if anyone would come up with a workable model, it be one or both of them.
A very important premise is mentioned by Judge Posner:
Drug crimes are often thought to be inherently violent because of their association with guns, gangs, turf wars, and fatal overdoses. Those characteristics are, however, merely artifacts of the fact that the sale of the drugs in question has been criminalized, so that the suppliers cannot use the usual, peaceable means of enforcing property rights and contracts and are not regulated in the interest of consumer safety, as legal drugs are.
This was the central motivating factor behind my argument for legalisation. The reason why there so many criminal activities associated with the drug trade is precisely because of the fact that the drug trade is criminalised. If the trade is regulated as opposed to prohibited, there is much greater scope for harm minimisation, both to society and the consumers of drugs.
The political source of the war on drugs is mysterious if, as I am inclined to believe, there is a legal substitute for every one of the illegal drugs: selective serotonin uptake reinhibitors (e.g., Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft) and other antidepressive drugs for cocaine, liquor and tranquillizers for heroin, cigarettes for marijuana, caffeine and steroids for ?uppers.? Obviously these are not perfect substitutes; and some of the illegal drugs may be more potent or addictive or physically or psychologically injurious than the legal ones. But it is apparent that our society has no general policy against the consumption of mind-altering substances, and there seems to be a certain arbitrariness in the choice of the subset to prohibit. If these drugs were regulated instead of being prohibited, their content could be made less potent and addictive and consumers could be warned more systematically about their dangers, as they are about the dangers of cigarettes and prescription drugs.
And Judge Posner makes another very important point here. The division of drugs into ‘acceptable’ and ‘prohibited’ is arbitrary. If a drug is classified according to degree of addictiveness and magnitude of mind-altering effects, one can see that there are many such substances available legally on the market. Why the artificial division? Surely there must be a more principled and coherent public policy approach?
Becker says:
Assuming an interest in reducing drug consumption- I will pay little attention here to whether that is a good goal- is there a better way to do that than by these unsuccessful wars? Our study suggests that legalization of drugs combined with an excise tax on consumption would be a far cheaper and more effective way to reduce drug use. Instead of a war, one could have, for example, a 200% tax on the legal use of drugs by all adults-consumption by say persons under age 18 would still be illegal. That would reduce consumption in the same way as the present war, and would also increase total spending on drugs, as in the current system.
But the similarities end at that point. The tax revenue from drugs would accrue to state and federal authorities, rather than being dissipated into the real cost involving police, imprisonment, dangerous qualities, and the like. Instead of drug cartels, there would be legal companies involved in production and distribution of drugs of reliable quality, as happened after the prohibition of alcohol ended. There would be no destruction of poor neighborhoods- so no material for ?the Wire? HBO series, or the movie ?Traffic?- no corruption of Afghani or Columbian governments, and no large scale imprisonment of African-American and other drug suppliers. The tax revenue to various governments hopefully would substitute for other taxes, or would be used for educating young people about any dangersous effects of drugs.
Here, Becker points out that the most important difference between prohibition and regulation is that tax revenues from drugs would not be expended on pointless and wasteful activities like war and enforcement on drug criminals, but could allow for reduction in other taxes, or be spent on social welfare projects.
There’s nothing I can add to Becker or Posner, I can only comment here and there. For the full treatment, follow the links at the bottom.
Legalisation of drugs: A sane economic and social policy |
