Pubdate: Fri, 13 Apr 2012
Source: New York Post (NY)
Copyright: 2012 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
Contact: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/letters_editor.htm
Website: http://www.nypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/296
Author: George F. Will

THE WAR ON DRUGS: TIME TO FACE FACTS

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 casual users will not substantially 
reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

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, 
DC, 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 spent trying to slow the 
flow of drugs to those street-level dealers.

Kleiman et al 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 US retail price.

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.

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.

Sixteen states have legalized "medical marijuana." 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 from prohibition.

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