Pubdate: Sat, 14 Apr 2012
Source: Daily Times, The (MD)
Copyright: 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/116
Author: George Will

TAKE THE WIND OUT OF DRUG DEALERS' SAILS

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 holds 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 percent 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, aka "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 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, and a $5 rock of crack might cost 
25 cents. Criminalization drives the cost of the smuggled kilogram in 
America 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' 
revenues. 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 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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom