Pubdate: Sat, 14 Apr 2012
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2012 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kansascity.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: George Will

TARGET HEAVY DRUG USERS TO CURB A BIG PROBLEM

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.

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.

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. Dealers 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 customers and the huge sums trying to slow the 
flow of drugs to those street-level dealers. 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.

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: Jay Bergstrom