Forbes magazine, long considered one of the most important outlets for business, has an article explaining why the war on drugs has been a massive failure and why it’s time to legalize drugs and end the destruction. It’s written by economist Art Carden.
Should drugs—especially marijuana—be legal? The answer is “yes.” Immediately. Without hesitation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 seized in a civil asset forfeiture. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure. It’s high time to end prohibition. Even if you aren’t willing to go whole-hog and legalize all drugs, at the very least we should legalize marijuana…
Prohibition is a textbook example of a policy with negative unintended consequences. Literally: it’s an example in the textbook I use in my introductory economics classes (Cowen and Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics if you’re curious) and in the most popular introductory economics textbook in the world (by N. Gregory Mankiw).The demand curve for drugs is extremely inelastic, meaning that people don’t change their drug consumption very much in response to changes in prices. Therefore, vigorous enforcement means higher prices and higher revenues for drug dealers. In fact, I’ll defer to Cowen and Tabarrok—page 60 of the first edition, if you’re still curious—for a discussion of the basic economic logic:
The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her.
People associate the drug trade with crime and violence; indeed, the newspapers occasionally feature stories about drug kingpins doing horrifying things to underlings and competitors. These aren’t caused by the drugs themselves but from the fact that they are illegal (which means the market is underground) and addictive (which means demanders aren’t very price sensitive).
That only scratches the surface of the many reasons why the drug war should be ended. Are we seeing the beginning of a real movement to do that? Quite possibly. I hope so.
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Tsu Dho Nimh
April 26, 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My family was smuggling whiskey from Canada during prohibition on a small scale – it put my dad through college, bought some ranches for his cousins, etc.
They sent their last pack train of mules across the border when prohibition was teetering. There was no more money to be made.
The “war on drugs” has been nothing but price support for the drug lords, enabling them to buy off entire local and some national governments. They would collapse if the “war” ended.
The crime associated with addiction is not the result of taking the drugs. It’s the result of the scarcity and high prices making it impossible to buy
Before the whole stupid mess started, many people were dependent on pain killing opiates: they got their drugs and they could keep working, and live crime-free lives.
boselecta
April 26, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Are we seeing the beginning of a real movement to do that?”
Nope – the beginning was way back in the 60s and 70s. We are seeing the widespread mainstreaming of the movement – i.e. these ideas are no longer just the domain of hippies and right-wing economists, but are gaining widespread public traction (says a guy who sets their homepage to Transform Drug Policy Foundation, and belongs to the UK sister group of America’s own Students for Sensible Drug Policy).
Bronze Dog
April 26, 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
One instinctive quibble: Overzealous enforcement would bring up the price and thus revenue, but it’d also raise the cost.
Of course, they probably raised the price in greater proportion than simply offsetting costs because, hey, who’s going to report them to the Better Business Bureau?
otrame
April 26, 2012 at 9:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Marijuana can be grown in your back yard. Of course, the potent stuff they sell these days (a hybrid of Cannibis sativa and C. indica) is usually grown under lights that are very bright, increasing both the rapidity with which it blooms and the potency, so there would still be a market for it. So tax the shit out of it.
I say treat them all like alcohol.
But, but, but, Cocaine!!! Meth!!!! The damage they do!!!
Yes, they do. Believe me, I am not down-playing that. But the real killer, the drug that is directly responsible for more deaths every year than all the others COMBINED, and is, in addition, by far the most addictive, is perfectly legal and always has been.
Drug-related problems are a medical issue and should be treated as such. The fact that some potentially addictive drugs are illegal makes if very hard to treat drug-related illnesses. It also make some people rich. Including a whole bunch of bankers who don’t even know what crack looks like, but very much enjoy the profit they make storing money made by those who do.
And one more thing. When these drugs are legalized, drastically reducing the profits to be made controlling the people who grow the plants that supply them, the farmers of whole countries will be freed of the forces that keep them mired in the 16th century.
But it will be a hard fight. A lot of drug money will go into the coffers of any political who will fight to keep those drugs illegal.
reverendrodney
April 26, 2012 at 9:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obama:
“I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, “Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.” What I can say is, “Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.” As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.”
To the contrary: when the feds raided the medical marijuana outlet Oaksterdam in Oakland, California they also confiscated the customer data base. For what reason if not to prosecute? Or at least instill fear, which is a form of prosecution.
Also, is the legality of marijuana actually “Congressional” law? I had thought that I read somewhere that the president can, with the stroke of a pen, reclassify a drug.
Anyway it is heartening that this article was published in Forbes.
dingojack
April 26, 2012 at 10:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“To the contrary: when the feds raided the medical marijuana outlet Oaksterdam in Oakland, California they also confiscated the customer data base. For what reason if not to prosecute? Or at least instill fear, which is a form of
prosecutionpersecution“.FTFY.
Dingo
baal
April 26, 2012 at 10:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d prefer to decriminalize rather than legalize (at least for certain classes of drugs). I know I’m quibbling a bit but there isn’t a safe way to use meth (for example).
d cwilson
April 26, 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, the federal Controlled Substances Act specifically names which drugs are classified as Schedule I substances and “Marihuana” and THC are both on the list, so, Obama is correct in that it takes an act of Congress to reclassify it.
One of the reasons why it’s going to be tough to end the war on drugs is that it’s becomes a huge revenue generator for law enforcement. Property seizures are big business. Then there’s our private prison industry who constantly lobbies state legislatures for harsher sentences. Gotta fill those cells somehow!
The only way we’ll truly see progress in ending the war on drugs is it at least 20 states vote to decriminalize marijuana, probably through ballot initiatives. Only then will it become “safe” for a national candidate to come out in favor of ending the war on drugs.
Doug Little
April 26, 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Speaking of this I just received this the other day from We the People. Sorry for the length.
jayarrrr
April 26, 2012 at 10:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have always believed that we should (at least) decriminalize, regulate, and tax weed, if not all drugs.
we already have experience with how to take care of people who are unable or unwilling to moderate their consumption because alcohol is just another drug, and we’ve had decades of work with that one.
Sometimes when I’m having this discussion with Law and Order types, they throw out the “So you’d be OK with some stoned driver running over your kid” argument. Ridiculous. I wouldn’t “be OK” with some DRUNK running over my kid, why would I be more accepting of a pothead? I guess most these people are just Jake with getting in a wreck with a drunk, I don’t know, maybe because alcohol is more socially acceptable? after all, it *IS* legal, right?
It’s past time to admit that we lost the “War of Drugs” and put it in the dustbin of history, along with the Volstead Act.
fifthdentist
April 26, 2012 at 11:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ yayarr
Over the years I’ve talked with a lot of law enforcement types. Chiefs of police are almost universally in favor of at least decriminalizing marijuana, while sheriffs take the opposite view.
The former say it’s not working and drains resources that could be used to address other crimes, while the sheriffs, in this area at least, almost always have control of a drug squad and a corresponding budget that allows for more employees and lots of toys like pickup trucks and four-wheelers. They also get the chance to seize money and cars.
Sheriffs almost universally rave about DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) programs, with which they are able to pay a portion of school resource officers’ salaries through federal grants, even though that program has been shown to have virtually no impact on the number of students who use drugs later in life. (DARE is a fifth-grade program).
boselecta
April 26, 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Baal @ 7:
“I’d prefer to decriminalize rather than legalize…I know I’m quibbling a bit but there isn’t a safe way to use meth”
There is no way of using meth that becomes safer when the meth is produced by unregulated criminal producers. And that’s the thing – we need legalization (i.e. legal regulation of the whole drugs industry from production, through wholesale and retail to consumption) if we are to limit both the harms caused by the use of illegally produced drugs and those caused by the criminal black market.
Mere decriminalization (i.e. no longer having it a crime to possess/use drugs, but still keeping production and sale illegal) keeps organised crime in control and prevents us from making the drugs as safe as they can be.
anandine
April 26, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree that drugs* should be legalized, but I doubt that it would affect the cartels much. I’ve read that marijuana accounts for 15% of mexican drug cartels’ income. If it were legalized, they would just shift more of their resources to kidnapping.
*except antibiotics. There is a good public health reason for keeping them prescription only, to minimize resistant strains of microbes.
boselecta
April 26, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Amusingly, Anandine, this is an issue where the US government has been seen to both hype up the percentage of the Mexican drug cartels’ income that comes from cannabis when they want to berate the public for propping up organised crime, and downplay the amount when their previous high figures started to get used as an argument for why we should take the cannabis trade out of their hands by legalizing it. Heads they win, tails you lose.
But we have good reason to expect that when all drugs are legally regulated it will seriously weaken the cartels – once you remove the corruption of the police and judiciary by the cartels, the money spent on law enforcement, and the potential gains from taxing the production of drugs, the state will have far more law enforcement resources to target at organised criminals that remain in the game, and the sort of crimes they will have to resort to to make money will no longer be consensual ones like the sale of a substance to a willing buyer, but victimising ones like kidnapping, which will give people much greater incentive to report it to the police in the first place.
It won’t be perfect, of course, but there’s only so much money to be made out of victimising people, and it’s a much lower amount than you can make out of selling people what they want to buy.
Area Man
April 26, 2012 at 12:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have to express some skepticism of this. Are there any empirical studies that show that drug consumption does not respond to prices? I’m pretty sure that if good quality weed could be had for $10 an ounce at the corner grocery, lots of people (myself included) would be more inclined to consume it.
What is true is that the drug war has not stopped consumption completely, but it’s hard to find a good control group to compare the current situation to.
David C Brayton
April 26, 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In my senior year of high school, I ran a ‘legalize the cultivation of marijuana’ case during league debates. Wow. The response from some ‘old’ judges was breathtaking–some were apoplectic. The negative team could have sung ABBA songs for their speeches–I still lost those debates.
So, my point is that legalization is proceeding along the same path as acceptance of gay marriage. Younger folks can see the wisdom of it and as the older generation dies off, there is much more acceptance of the idea.
But the financial incentive to law enforcement to prosecute this war is titanic. It will be a long time before meaningful legalization takes hold, I’m afraid.
marcus
April 26, 2012 at 1:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Legalize marijuana absolutely. For the “harder” more addictive drugs I would recommend decriminalization, regulation, and treatment, read no incarceration for simple abuse and possession. Obviously we can’t allow outlaw bikers and their ilk to poison the environment and people with the crap they cook up in their hideous labs, but those issues can be handled in a more nuanced and effective manner under environmental protection and human health laws.
d cwilson
April 26, 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not sure about illegal drugs, but I have seen studies that have shown that price has virtually no effect on tobacco sales. Pretty strong evidence in support to the power of its addiction.
daved
April 26, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Of course there is. Ever heard of Adderall? That’s straight methamphetamine. (And, frankly, I’d love to be able to get it over-the-counter, if there were some way to manufacture it so that it couldn’t be abused.)
Now, if you want to argue that there isn’t a safe way to use meth to get high, OK, I’ll agree that there probably isn’t.
Zugswang
April 26, 2012 at 2:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It reiterates what a lot of us have known for a long time, so it’s good to see this getting more mainstream appeal, but this comment by the author made me groan a little (page 7 of comments):
Area Man
April 26, 2012 at 4:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But I thought that the continued reduction in smoking was due in part to having taxed the shit out of cigarettes (as witnessed by higher rates of quitting in high tax states). Although there’s obviously more to it than that, I thought that it was more or less agreed on by public health types that increased cost was a meaningful disincentive.
snebo154
April 26, 2012 at 9:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
By the time I’m finished here my sentiments will be pretty obvious and I will have pissed off more than a few people. Nothing new there.
Let me start by saying that I may have, at some point in the last 18 years, used recreational drugs. I read these discussions and I always hear voices in my head (unfortunately, nothing new there either) singing to the old Kennel Ration jingle; “My drug’s better than your drug, my drug’s better than yours”. This is universal, I was always amazed at the people who would go to some of the forum sights like “the Hive” which was basically a group of, in most cases, fairly intelligent underground chemists trading ideas on how to make meth and ecstasy. (OK, I may have gotten pretty deep into the drug culture over the last 18 yrs) There was a lot of discussion about legalization with a surprising number of advocates of legalizing meth and “x” but keeping the really bad drugs like crack and heroin illegal. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and if alcohol continues to be legal I am going to need a pretty warped sense of justice or morals or, well pretty much anything else to say that heroin shouldn’t be.
Baal @7
“I know I’m quibbling a bit but there isn’t a safe way to use meth”
Someone want to tell me a safe to use any drug. The “safest” way to use a drug is to use the least amount you can and still get the effects that you want. Take enough Tylenol to get rid of your headache while remembering that far more people die every year of Tylenol overdose than of any other drug, legal or illegal.
Try reading “Pihkal” By Shulgin. There is a set of instructions on what supplements to take to offset almost all negative effects of meth use. These instructions will give you the “safest” way to do meth. By the way, his research was done legally with the knowledge and approval of the Govt. who then yanked his license and (unsuccessfully) prosecuted him when he didn’t come up with the results that they were expecting.
The “safest” way to drink alcohol? Drink responsibly but don’t forget that every study ever done shows that far and away the most damage done to a fetus by any recreational drug comes from alcohol. If you get a chance, read an autopsy report done on a long term alcoholic. Black brain disease isn’t pretty.
The “safest” way to do any drug is to do a one manufactured under the highest (pun intended) possible quality control conditions. This doesn’t happen in a garage unsupervised by anyone who knows enough chemistry to graduate high school. (pun unavoidable) This happens in a well stocked pharmaceutical lab staffed by properly educated people. Dangerous adulterants are another negative aspect of drug use that comes from criminalization.
boselecta @14
Thanks for your input, it was well thought out and well stated. And,, oh yeah, right.
Drugs are like hammers, they are tools. There is no such thing as a good drug or a bad drug any more than there are good hammers and bad hammers. Both are things which can add quality to our lives. Either can be detrimental and dangerous when misused.
I do not advocate the use of illegal drugs, I think they should all be legal. And to whom it may concern, I’ve been clean for about a year. Most of the time I’m happy with that choice. “But there are days.” (gratuitous Jon Luc Picard quote)
Forbes Gets It: Prohibition Doesn’t Work « Foster Disbelief
April 26, 2012 at 5:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] big hat tip to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars for highlighting this [...]