Pubdate: Thu, 12 Apr 2012
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: George F. Will

TO LEGALIZE OR NOT LEGALIZE: THAT IS THE QUESTION WHEN IT COMES TO
ILLICIT 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 applies to 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. Because
marketing can drive consumption, America's distillers, brewers and
vintners spend $6 billion on advertising and promotion. 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 up 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
Washington, D.C., dealers earned an average of $30 an hour a few years
ago but today 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.

Mr. Kleiman, Mr. Caulkins and Ms. 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 America. If cocaine were legalized, a $2,000 kilogram could
be FedExed from Colombia for less than $50 and sold profitably in
America for a small markup from its price in Colombia. Criminalization
drives the cost of the smuggled kilogram in America up to $20,000, and
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.

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'
revenues. Legalizing it would take perhaps $10 billion from 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 of Columbia 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.

George F. Will is a syndicated columnist for The Washington  First Published 2012-04-12 04:25:34
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MAP posted-by: Matt