Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jan 2014
Source: Harvard Crimson, The (MA Edu)
Copyright: 2014, The Harvard Crimson, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.thecrimson.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/794
Author: Jeffrey A. Miron
Note: Jeffrey A. Miron is Senior Lecturer and Director of 
Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics and a Senior 
Fellow at the Cato Institute. He is the author of "Libertarianism, 
from A to Z."

IS THE WAR ON DRUGS OVER?

In December 2013, Uruguay legalized marijuana, Earlier, in 2012, 
Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana under the laws of their 
states, and 21 additional states and the District of Columbia have 
now decriminalized or allowed medical use of marijuana. Portugal 
decriminalized all drugs in 2001, and the Netherlands has practiced 
de facto legalization for marijuana for decades. More broadly, many 
countries have de-escalated their "Wars on Drugs." Indeed, President 
Obama hinted strongly in a recent interview that he supports 
marijuana legalization.

Legalization advocates, therefore, are feeling optimistic: Many 
expect full legalization, at least for marijuana, within a few years.

This euphoria is understandable, but premature.

Legalizers are correct that prohibition is a terrible approach to 
balancing the costs of drug abuse against the costs of policies that 
attempt to reduce drug abuse.

Prohibition drives drug markets underground, thereby generating 
violence and corruption. Participants in black markets cannot resolve 
their disputes with courts and lawyers, so they resort to violence instead.

Prohibition makes quality control difficult, so the incidence of 
accidental poisonings and overdoses is higher than in a legal market. 
People who purchase alcohol know what purity they are getting; people 
who purchase cocaine or heroin do not.

Prohibition spreads HIV. Elevated drug prices incentivize injection 
(users get a big bang for the buck), while fostering restrictions on 
clean needles. Users therefore share dirty needles, which accounts 
for a large fraction of new HIV infections in the United States.

Prohibition harms those who use drugs despite prohibition, since they 
risk arrest and imprisonment in addition to the negatives of drug use itself.

Prohibition encourages racial profiling and other infringements on 
civil liberties. Neither party to a drug transaction wants to notify 
the police, who therefore use more intrusive tactics in the attempt 
to enforce the law.

Prohibition wastes criminal justice resources and prevents collection 
of taxes on the production or purchase of drugs, thus adversely 
impacting government budgets.

And abundant evidence from America's experiment with Prohibition, 
from state decriminalizations, and medicaliziations; from comparisons 
across countries with weak versus strong prohibition regimes; and 
from experience with other prohibited commodities suggests that 
prohibitions generates only moderate reductions in drug use. Some of 
that reduction, moreover, is a cost of prohibition, not a 
benefit-since many people consume drugs without ill effects on 
themselves or others.

Prohibition is therefore a terrible policy, even if one endorses 
government attempts to reduce drug use. Prohibition has large costs 
with minimal "benefits" at best in terms of lower use.

So legalizers are right on the merits, and recent opinion polls show 
increasing public supportfor legalization (at least for marijuana). 
But the negatives of prohibitions have been widely understood at 
least since the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition, yet this has not 
stopped the U.S. from pushing drug prohibition both at home and abroad.

In addition, further progress toward legalization faces serious impediments.

The first is that recent de-escalation of the Drug War addresses 
marijuana only. Yet much prohibition-induced harm results from 
prohibitions of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. Public opinion 
is less open to legalizing these drugs.

Even worse, drug warriors might respond to marijuana legalization by 
ramping up hysteria toward still-prohibited drugs, increasing 
prohibition-induced ills in those markets. The public would then 
observe increased drug-market violence in the wake of marijuana 
legalization, which would appear to show that legalization causes violence.

A different worry is that while public opinion currently swings 
toward legalizations, public opinion can change. And marijuana 
remains illegal under federal law, so a new president could undo 
President Obama's "hands off" approach.

Perhaps the greatest threat to legalization is that many 
people-including some legalizers-believe policy can eliminate the 
black market and its negatives while maintaining strict control over 
legalized drugs. That is why recent legalizations include 
restrictions on production and purchase amounts, retail locations, 
exports, sales to tourists, high taxes, and more.

If these restrictions are so weak that they rarely constrain the 
legal market, they do little harm. But if these restrictions are 
serious, they re-create black markets.

Legalizers must accept that, under legalization, drug use will be 
more open and some people will misuse. The incidence of use and abuse 
might be no higher than now; indeed, outcomes like accidental 
overdoses should decline. But legalizers should not oversell, since 
that risks a backlash when negative outcomes occur.

None of this is meant to deny that recent policy changes constitute 
real progress. But these gains will evaporate unless the case for 
legalization includes all drugs and is up front about the negatives 
as well as the positives.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom