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The Economist Calls for an End to the Drug War

By Ethan Brown, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 02:10:00 AM EST
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The Economist has an excellent cover story this week cataloging the extraordinary failures of the drug war.

I was particularly gratified to read the Economist's editors write that the fear of legalization is "based in large part on the presumption that more people would take drugs under a legal regime. That presumption may be wrong. There is no correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also Britain) take more drugs, not fewer."

That's exactly right, as I argued a couple of weeks ago here at Talk Left in a post titled "The Legalization Scare" [More...]

"There's good reason to be skeptical that legalization would yield...huge increases in use/abuse...because, well, drugs of all kinds are readily available to anyone who wants to experiment with them."

As the failure of drug prohibition becomes increasingly evident, drug war opponents need to make a few simple points as loudly and often as possible:

1--The drug war has in large part led to sky high incarceration rates that are inherently undemocratic;

2--Drugs are just as available as they were when anti-drug measures were ramped up in the 1980s;

3--The drug war is fast turning Mexico into a failed state with dangerous national security consequences for the United States;

4--Legalization is unlikely to lead to more people taking drugs and indeed legalization will free up much needed funds for rehabilitation and will therefore curb demand for drugs.

It's long past time to end the stupid, immoral, costly and vastly counter-productive drug war.

Bravo to The Economist for a great cover story--here's hoping that other media outlets take a similarly courageous stance on one of the more egregious public policy failures of our time.

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    The Economist Calls for an End to the Drug War | 11 comments (11 topical)

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    I fear the war on drugs... (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by kdog on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 08:32:18 AM EST
    is another of those "too big to fail" institutions that so many afraid to imagine a life without.

    Why that is I have no idea...it's just weighing us down like our other "too big to fails" that have...umm, failed.  

    I guess the right people are getting paid...it is the only explanation that makes any sense at all.

    here here... (none / 0) (#1)
    by of1000Kings on Sun Mar 08, 2009 at 10:14:29 PM EST
    great bullet points...

    I think we're getting closer and closer to the time when people realize that prohibition has failed once again...

    At least this time (none / 0) (#2)
    by themomcat on Sun Mar 08, 2009 at 10:34:36 PM EST
    They didn't amend the Constitution.

    Parent
    More people taking drugs... (none / 0) (#3)
    by bocajeff on Sun Mar 08, 2009 at 11:13:43 PM EST
    Are we really worried about more adults making adult decisions?

    Ending the war on drugs sounds good to me (none / 0) (#4)
    by Mikeb302000 on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 04:03:51 AM EST
    This is covered in the third point of my 3-point plan. Read it here.  Of course from place to place that 25% figure would have to be adjusted, but you get the idea.

    Coke a Cola used to put cocanine is soda pop (none / 0) (#5)
    by joze46 on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 06:02:27 AM EST
    Upon random surfing an article stood out that reported about how in 1903 Coke a Cola put as much as 60 milligrams of cocaine into the soda sold publicly.

    Laughably that sounds like a real free market buzz. Did Coke, or the government, those responsible ever get sued for reparations, damages, or other; some consider 60 milligrams as a lethal dose.

    Google and find that America now consumes about 350 metric tons of cocaine a year. Yikes, if that is right our drug program needs honest reflection and mainstream media is nowhere to be found as an honest answer for that, with this issue the media is not only the core problem but an absolute failure.

    Actually with the drug issue the media is the problem with our national illegal and legal street drugs and professional medically distributed markets.  

    Again if you do a Google a book report as in this one reproduction of several chapters are produced that encourage one to buy the book. Here is one about drugs  

    http://books.google.com/books?id=xlj7DLuedSUC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=is+60+milligrams+of+co caine+dangerous&source=bl&ots=UXcwnEDnoK&sig=uVKNtAfQbN7PddoJipbxs6LBMzw&hl=en&e i=y-60SbTUG4fGMq_8keME&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPR3,M1

    My point is if you think the economy is screwed up by the housing problem wait till the drug issue is addressed. The stock market brokers likely will offer rebate coupons to in order to sell off their pile of portfolio stocks using Madoff accounting. Just like when you buy cars, you get cash back. That's funny.  

    As to destabilizing Mexico, (none / 0) (#6)
    by scribe on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 08:27:32 AM EST
    the same can be said for destabilizing Afghanistan.  So long as profit - huge profit - can be made from drugs, the problems will continue and grow.

    It is only the huge profits which come to drug dealers because of the restrictions the law places them that the insurgencies those dealers are leading take place.  60 Minutes had a nice scare story on a week or so ago, about all the weaponry the Mexican gangs were using.  In the layout of seized guns, among all the AKs, was a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle.  

    Last I checked, those retail about for $8,000, and .50 BMG cartridges go for something like $5 a pop.

    That ain't cheap.  And the drug guys seem to love 'em.

    Said another way, legalization will cut the financial power out from under the drug gangs and their seditions, far more effectively than all the seizures of dope, guns and money ever will.  AFAIK from cursorily looking at reference books, the plants which yield dope - cannabis, poppy and coca - all grow like proverbial weeds when planted in a suitable environment.  Cutting out the price premium the law creates on commodities which would be abundant and grow abundantly by nature is the only way to remove economic power - and the incentive to cause Mexico or Afghanistna to fail - from the drug gangs.

    During WWII, we and the Brits (and the Germans, too) all had departments concerned with economic warfare.  Stuff like counterfeiting the enemy's money to destabilize the enemy's economy, getting in the way of the enemy's foreign trade, seizing bank accounts and gold reserves, etc.  The only way to end the drug gangs' wars on us is similar economic warfare.  They derive their wealth from the constriction of supply placed on their product b/c of the product being illegal.  Remove the illegality and their wealth will disappear and with it, the insurgencies.

    more people use when legal? (none / 0) (#8)
    by diogenes on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 09:52:27 AM EST
    If more people don't use drugs when they are legal then why is the drinking age for alcohol 21 and not 18, 12, or 6?  Why is there an age below which you can't legally buy cigarettes?
    Stop the bad science.  Admit that more people will try drugs if they are legal (especially the type of people who are law-abiding but would like to experiment) but that the benefit of legalization exceeds the risk.

    People will try drugs.... (none / 0) (#9)
    by kdog on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 10:15:49 AM EST
    regardless of their legality or illegality...I mean look around man.

    I can't tell ya why the drinking age is 21...makes no sense to me.  Ask MADD.

    Parent

    "Al Capone, but on a global scale" (none / 0) (#10)
    by Ethan Brown on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 12:17:28 PM EST
    Nice points about Afghanistan and cutting the power from the cartels. Which reminds me that I should have mentioned that one of the smartest points from the Economist piece was their contention that the illicit drug markets have created international, vastly rich and powerful cartels, globalized Al Capones. Legalization may not wipe out the cartels entirely but it will drain much of their profits and influence--and it is certainly hard to imagine a worse outcome than the one we have now where cartels have become so powerful that they are destabilizing much of Mexico and now even flexing their muscles in the US.

    We can debate the pros and cons of drug (none / 0) (#11)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 12:43:29 PM EST
    legalization till the cows come home, but is there anyone here who really thinks this would possibly happen w/in our lifetimes?

    The Economist Calls for an End to the Drug War | 11 comments (11 topical)

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