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Bad Guys Will Still Be Bad Guys
Megan McArdle has an excellent post describing one of the best consequentialist arguments for ending the war on drugs:
… I consider the reduction of violent crime to be the main benefit. Deprived of the ability to enforce contracts through the relatively peaceful legal process used by other markets, black markets are accompanied by high levels of violence: Gangs fight for territory, enforce business agreements and try to defer defections. The more profitable the black market is, the more incentive there is to use violence to protect your profits, which may be one reason that the introduction of crack cocaine was accompanied by such a huge increase in violent crime. Legalizing drugs cuts into the profits and gives industry players legal means to settle their disputes, so in theory, this should reduce the prevalence, and the brutality, of violent gangs.
I find the logic of this nearly unassailable. Just as there’s no inherent reason why the alcohol trade should be violent, there’s little inherent reason why the market for other intoxicants should be. Give people the opportunity to work within the confines of the law — and to enjoy its protections — and the worst sorts of behavior become unnecessary. Deny them those confines and protections, and we quickly descend into a petty Hobbesianism that drives out all the nice guys and rewards the worst.
So, once we end the war on drugs, people will give up on the violence and criminality, dust-off their guitars, and debate whether to play “Doctor Robert” or”Tomorrow Never Knows” with the latest offering of legal bud, right? And with modern Prohibition over, I can finally use Rob Long’s contacts to pitch my idea for a pot-themed remake of The Thin Man starring James Franco and Anna Kendrick (which would totally work; heck, the sequels are already written).
Well, probably not, says McArdle:
[W]e should be modest about how much the end of Prohibition achieved. Because the Mafia did not simply disappear along with the source of its biggest profits. Instead, like any business, it sat back, took stock, and opened up new lines of business. Labor racketeering, gambling, extortion — these things might once have been sidelines, but they became the main show.
In other words, policy outcomes have a lot of path dependence. The Mafia was not created by Prohibition; it seems to have been an outgrowth of post-feudal Sicily, and it made its way to America along with Sicilian immigrants. But the advent of Prohibition greatly increased their profits and power, and by the time Prohibition ended, they were far too big and well-organized to simply slip softly and silently away into the night.
In other words, we’re not only likely to see a persistence of crime (though probably at a less-violent level) we’ll see some of the smarter drug lords corrupt other things that aren’t currently so bad. And that’s just looking at the drug trade and leaving aside effects of drug legalization on consumption (also likely a mixed bag).
I’d still take the bargain, but ending the war on drugs will be no panacea.
Published in Domestic Policy
you’re most definitely not.
From a 2012 article in the Business Insider:
If it’s data you want, the data is in and it looks pretty persuasive.
But note: decriminalisation is not the same as legalisation, and the Portuguese model is not libertarian.
And going to the heart of it: Chasing the Scream, by Johann Hari, looks at the causes of drug addiction – which should, logically, inform our responses to it.
Ricochet is a center-right website and hence welcomes conservatives, libertarians, and middle of the roaders. To ask “why are you even on this site?” presumes exclusivity for certain points of view, and suggests that alternative viewpoints are unwelcome. I do hope we can all see the folly in that course of action.
I think there are compelling arguments on both sides of the drug legalization issue.
One thing not addressed in the OP or in the comments so far (unless I missed it) is the issue of age. Would you legalize them for kids as well?
We’re having a very big problem with heroin proliferation in New England, especially in some of the rural areas. And we are seeing a lot of deaths from heroin overdoses, and I would guess most are perhaps suicide. Nevertheless, the more heroin that is out there on the streets, the easier it is for the kids to get it, especially vulnerable kids such as those in foster care or dysfunctional families. As I read somewhere, the first dose is free.
We’re certainly not doing well in controlling heroin traffic, and perhaps it can’t be done at this point. And education isn’t working. So yes, legalize it because we can’t manage it anyway, or no, try harder to get control of the drug so it won’t be as easy to get.
If you would allow restrictions on selling drugs to minors, then legalizing it for adults isn’t going to solve all of our substance abuse problems anyway.
On the other hand, if we were to legalize drugs, I would want to go to the full extreme of ending prescription drugs entirely, including antibiotics.
One thing driving up the cost of healthcare for individuals is the requirement to get a doctor’s prescription for so many drugs. For example, blood pressure medicine. So a person saw a doctor ten years ago, couldn’t continue for some reason such as a lack of insurance, knows he needs this medicine. Why can’t he go to a drug store and get it himself without seeing a doctor?
This requirement to have a doctor’s prescription for drugs is crazy in my opinion.
It is an area of control that I think is unnecessary and harmful to people in some circumstances.
So if we do legalize drugs, I want them all legalized. No more controlled substances.
The bottom line to me is that we need to revisit our laws and rework them.
I’m really open-minded on the drug legalization issue, and I find the Ricochet discussions very interesting and always enlightening.
Nice words. Not true, but nice. And this thread brings them to mind because we in American society today whether or not we love liberty are not willing to pay the price or bear the burden or meet the hardship to support friends, neighbors, family, countrymen who lose their way in the slough of despond and miasma at the end of the “drug-fueled” path. We either want to gate off the path or leave those who foolishly wander down it to the consequences of their own folly. And so we get govco foolishness like the War on Drugs or its ‘Big Brother’ War–the War on Poverty. Such “wars” are no more the answer than is “fuggetaboutit.” “Solutions” to such problems are the stuff of utopian dreams. Amelioration is likely possible, and it is even likely that govco could have a role; but not until we who have either chosen or been given a different path can found common ground–community ground–on just what an attempt at amelioration might look like. Surely it is not like anything we are now trying.
I think the first thing that has to happen is the removal of govco from this. Then, people will, over time, restore the voluntary institutions of aid that govco pushed aside so many years ago.
Mike: Thank you for writing what I had been thinking. I’m a bit put off by the comments of those who come across (though I’m sure their intentions are honorable) as the Faithful and Omniscient Arbiters of True Libertarian Orthodoxy.
Pardon my ignorance: “govco?” Please define (though I can vaguely grasp, from the context).
@Mike: OK, that was ill-considered of me. I occasionally forget that the principles that represented Conservativism in my formative years are now in the minority in the party, and on this site. Mea culpa. BTW: your second sentence contradicts your first; you first state that only certain points of view are welcome here, and then you criticize me for making certain points of view feel unwelcome. So any point of view is welcome if it’s had the “right” label attached?
@Dad Dog: You can call yourself whatever you want—one liberty the War on Drugs has left us. I don’t have to buy it.
I got that from Derek, whose comment I was answering. It was also used in an earlier comment, I believe. I didn’t take it to mean much more than “the government”.