Pubdate: Wed, 06 Aug 2014
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Steve Lafleur
Page: B4

WAR ON DRUGS NEEDS A RETHINK

Harm reduction: Legislators should drop morality approach, consider
end to black market

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 that 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 situation 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 that 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 decreased in
Portugal after decriminalization), gang profits would decrease and
other drug availability would consequently decrease.

One might argue from the above 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 from them
by 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 both 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 cause significant harm. The prime
example is cocaine.

The harm rarely extends beyond users and their families. These drugs
should be decriminalized so that 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.

Steve Lafleur is a policy analyst with the Frontier Centre for Public
Policy (www.fcpp.org).
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MAP posted-by: Matt