the war on drugs (revisited)

In a response to an earlier blog entry, I received the following reply and sent the following response:

Been reading your blog pretty much every night and wanted to get your thoughts on this on in a more expanded version if you have the time. As I have thought about this it does seem to be a no brainer from the standpoint of cost-benefit. I can think of a lot of ways to spend the tax money that is wasted fighting what is clearly an unwinnable "war on drugs". The first of which would be to return it to the taxpayer. I am sure I am probably like a lot of people in worrying about the unknown consequences of taking this path and making something legal just because we are emotionally and financially tired of fighting it.

My question is what does the landscape of America look like when previously illegal drugs are legalized. This is not a rhetorical question at all but one that I have been thinking about for a while. I was trying to come up with how you go about making something like crack or crystal methamphetamine or even run of the mill coke legal being that they are so addictive. If we turn them into prescription drugs, I don't see legalization having much of an effect at stemming their illegal use, it just turns them into another abused prescription drug like oxcontin or any of the other prescription narcotics sold on the street corner. The difference between the two being that you can make the presently illegal stuff over a hotplate on your backporch unlike oxycontin or more chemically complex painkillers. I can't imagine just flipping a switch one day and saying, "it's all legal, have at it, just know it will kill you eventually".

So basically, how do you regulate something like this and how much will regulating it cost versus fighting it as illegal. I'm sure it would be less, but any estimates that you have come across on how much less I would be interested in. The only "laboratory" that I can think of for this type of approach, if I remember correctly, is the Nehterlands where drugs, among a host of other things, are legal. I wish I could give you a reference but it was a long time ago that I read an article that said that the Dutch experince over a 50% addiction rate. If I remember right, like other European countries they provide medical care to everyone on the backs of the taxpayers that also results in excess of 50% tax rates with a lot of that medical care going to treat these various addictions. Lost productivity due to sickness due to drug use and abuse, etc. How do we not end up like this, minus the universal healthcare of course, hopefully. Feel free to correct my figures as they are only recollections of what I have read. I don't think I am grossly off but I didn't do any research before shooting this to you.

Like I said, this option is pretty scary to your average suburbanite. All of the sudden I have pictures of a less than ideal neighbor running a legal meth lab next door. I know this is not how it would work, but that is what the irrational side sees at first thought about this. The fact that we are Christians throws a lot of other stuff in the grab bag. How much cost is to much if it keeps even one person from dying from something drug related when they may have been someone that would have avoided it if it was illegal vs. being good stewards and not "wasting" resources God has given us vs. not forcing others to give to our cause vs. giving of our own time, talent, and treasure from a caring heart. I don't think I have heard anybody outline a comprehensive plan on how legalize these things. It certainly would not be as easy as post prohibition alcohol. I can't see someone saying, "why don't we go out after work and do some social crack smoking". Anyway, any thoughts you have had would be of interest to me.

Thanks for the response—and on such a fun/challenging topic!

You should be able to read the attached (chapter 10 from Poor Policy) with Word. (If not, let me know.) It’s ten years old, but still mostly relevant. For example, it details many of the other practical costs of prohibition. And it’s mostly a secular argument, but the Christian addition to the discussion encourages even less concern about decriminalization if not stronger advocacy of legalization (more below).

To deal with your questions (at least briefly; we can talk at length in person):

-We don’t know, for sure, what America would look like—short-term OR long-term. (Consider alcohol, including the cultural changes over the last 60-70 years that have made drinking more popular but drunkenness less popular.) A thought experiment: how many more people would try &/or become addicted to drugs X, Y, and Z if they were made legal today? How many are prevented from experimenting and/or getting addicted now? If they’re not stopping drug use in prison, how effective are they outside the prison walls? There are ethical considerations about using government to keep people from doing harm to themselves (as defined by government). But practically, I don't imagine government being all that effective-- and thus, don't think that legalization would cause a huge increase in use or addiction.

-To the economist, regulation and taxes are more modest forms of prohibition—since all increase the cost of participating in the activity as a consumer and/or producer. Prohibition doesn’t really prohibit; it just imposes big costs. (Prohibition backed up with a death penalty—as is done in some countries—would increase the expected costs even further!) So, the extent of the regulation and taxes is related to the likelihood that there will be underground activity in that realm. For example, we see cigarette smuggling between low-tax and high-tax states—an inherently legal activity which becomes illegal (and attractively so) because of the tax/reg.

-As with other policies, the existence of related sub-optimal policies complicates the practical discussion further. For example, if we’re going to have welfare, then the discussions about immigration (legal or illegal) become more complicated.

-The Christian addition: When should we devote time, talent, and treasure to public policy issues? Here, should we ignore the policy issues, fight for prohibition, tacitly support prohibition, tacitly support decrim or legal, fight for legal. When I look at the ethics of trying to keep people from (mostly) harming themselves—and the tremendous practical costs of doing so (often imposed on innocents)—I end up in one of the last two categories.