Pubdate: Thu, 12 Apr 2012
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2012 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: George F. Will

SHOULD THE U.S. LEGALIZE HARD DRUGS?

Amelioration of today's drug problem requires Americans to understand
the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American
drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20
split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people - less than 1 percent of America's population -
consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking
organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior
of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so.
Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not
substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow
of money.

Consider current policy concerning the only addictive intoxicant
currently available as a consumer good - alcohol. America's alcohol
industry, which is as dependent on the 20 percent of heavy drinkers as
they are on alcohol, markets its products aggressively and
effectively. Because marketing can drive consumption, America's
distillers, brewers and vintners spend $6 billion on advertising and
promoting their products. Americans' experience with marketing's power
inclines them to favor prohibition and enforcement over legalization
and marketing of drugs.

But this choice has consequences: More Americans are imprisoned for
drug offenses or drug-related probation and parole violations than for
property crimes. And although America spends five times more jailing
drug dealers than it did 30 years ago, the prices of cocaine and
heroin are 80 to 90 percent lower than 30 years ago.

In "Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know," policy analysts
Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken argue that imprisoning
low-ranking street-corner dealers is pointless: A $200 transaction can
cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence. And imprisoning large
numbers of dealers produces an army of people who, emerging from prison
with blighted employment prospects, can only deal drugs. Which is why,
although a few years ago Washington, D.C., dealers earned an average of
$30 an hour, today they earn less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).

Dealers, a.k.a. "pushers," have almost nothing to do with initiating
drug use by future addicts; almost every user starts when given drugs
by a friend, sibling or acquaintance. There is a staggering disparity
between the trivial sums earned by dealers who connect the cartels to
the cartels' customers and the huge sums trying to slow the flow of
drugs to those street-level dealers. Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken say
that, in developed nations, cocaine sells for about $3,000 per ounce -
almost twice the price of gold. And the supply of cocaine, unlike that
of gold, can be cheaply and quickly expanded. But in the countries
where cocaine and heroin are produced, they sell for about 1 percent
of their retail price in the United States. If cocaine were legalized,
a $2,000 kilogram could be FedExed from Colombia for less than $50 and
sold profitably here for a small markup from its price in Colombia,
and a $5 rock of crack might cost 25 cents. Criminalization drives the
cost of the smuggled kilogram in the United States up to $20,000. But
then it retails for more than $100,000.

People used to believe enforcement could raise prices but doubted that
higher prices would decrease consumption. Now they know consumption
declines as prices rise but wonder whether enforcement can
substantially affect prices.

They urge rethinking the drug-control triad of enforcement, prevention
and treatment because we have been much too optimistic about all three.

And cartels have oceans of money for corrupting enforcement because
drugs are so cheap to produce and easy to renew. So it is not
unreasonable to consider modifying a policy that gives hundreds of
billions of dollars a year to violent organized crime.

Marijuana probably provides less than 25 percent of the cartels'
revenue. Legalizing it would take perhaps $10 billion from some bad
and violent people, but the cartels would still make much more money
from cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines than they would lose from
marijuana legalization.

Sixteen states and the District have legalized "medical marijuana," a
messy, mendacious semi-legalization that breeds cynicism regarding
law. In 1990, 24 percent of Americans supported full legalization.
Today, 50 percent do. In 2010, in California, where one-eighth of
Americans live, 46 percent of voters supported legalization, and some
opponents were marijuana growers who like the profits they make from
prohibition of their product.

Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a
price worth paying for injuring the cartels and reducing the costs of
enforcement? We probably are going to find out.
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MAP posted-by: Matt