Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jul 2014
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Steve Lafleur
Note: Steve Lafleur is a policy analyst with the Frontier Centre for 
Public Policy (www.fcpp.org).
Page: A14

LEGAL POT WOULD CUT AVAILABILITY OF HARD DRUGS

Legalizing Soft Drugs Would Help Reduce the Availability of Hard Drugs

Does caffeine lead to cocaine use? Obviously not. But what would 
happen if caffeine was outlawed? Naturally, a black market would 
emerge. Drug gangs, which are highly skilled at operating outside of 
the law, and have pre-existing distribution channels, would begin 
trafficking illegal caffeine pills. If people were forced to use 
black market distribution chains to obtain a mild stimulant such as 
caffeine, would they be more likely to opt for a stronger stimulant 
such as cocaine? Almost certainly.

Dealing with drug dealers is a binary. Either you do it or you don't. 
And if you do, they will likely try to upsell you. Drug dealers are 
like any other sales people, minus the legal sanction (meaning they 
are more likely to rip you off or assault you). They want to obtain 
the highest profit margin possible. Cocaine sells at a much higher 
margin than caffeine pills would, even if caffeine was outlawed. Even 
if most people resisted the dealers' insistence cocaine would provide 
a better experience, some non-drug users would try it out; some would 
even become addicted. Caffeine use would likely decline, while use of 
cocaine and other illicit drugs would increase.

This hypothetical is analogous to the prohibition of marijuana. 
People often refer to marijuana as a gateway drug that leads to usage 
of stronger drugs. There is no intrinsic gateway effect from 
marijuana. However, once you're buying marijuana on the black market, 
it isn't much of a step to purchase psychedelic mushrooms or cocaine 
or ecstasy. Once you have a dealer, he/she will try to upsell you. 
Marijuana isn't a gateway drug. Black market marijuana is a gateway drug.

Legalizing marijuana would erode gang profits. It provides around 
half of global drug gang profits. One might argue they would simply 
make up for this by pushing drugs that remain illegal. This is 
certainly what they'd try to do. However, legalized marijuana would 
disrupt the entire black market. Since dealers would no longer be 
able to lure customers in by selling them marijuana, only to later 
upsell them, they would have a much more difficult time engaging 
customers to begin with - and if dealing isn't profitable, gangs will 
have a hard time finding dealers to buy their wholesale products. 
While marijuana use would likely increase (though it actually 
decreased in Portugal after decriminalization), gang profits would 
decrease and other drug availability would consequently decrease.

One might argue from that logic that all drugs should be legalized. 
That would be simplistic. Some drugs may pose such a threat to users 
and society that the trade-off of allowing gangs to profit off of 
them from selling a small amount is preferable to legalizing them, 
even if that only means a marginal increase in usage. Drugs such as 
crystal meth fall into that category. A true harm reduction approach 
to drugs would weigh the costs of drug usage and the cost of 
prohibition. Both can be substantial. We need a rational approach to 
making these calculations.

One approach would be creating three legal categories. The first 
would be milder substances that, while harmful, are widely used. Hard 
liquors, cigarettes and marijuana are substances that would occupy 
that category. The harm from the substances is less than the 
destruction resulting from prohibition. These drugs should be 
restricted to adult usage and should carry specific excise taxes.

The second category would include drugs that can be very harmful to 
users but rarely fatal, and rarely causing significant externalities. 
The prime example is cocaine. The harm rarely extends beyond users 
and their families. These drugs should be decriminalized so problem 
users can seek treatment without fear of legal repercussions.

The third category is drugs that are extremely harmful to the users 
and society as a whole. Drugs such as crystal meth should likely 
remain illegal.

While they would continue to line the pockets of drug gangs, the harm 
from even a modest increase in usage would be substantial.

Gangs will always exist. But strangling their most benign revenue 
sources would reduce their ability to finance distribution of the 
worst drugs, as well as other evils such as human trafficking.

Drug policy is often considered the domain of morality. It shouldn't 
be. Issues of personal morality should not be legislated. But when 
public safety is at stake, it can make sense to crack down on certain 
drugs. A utilitarian, harm-reduction approach to drug policy would be 
a vast improvement over our reckless, moralistic approach.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom