Well, I don't smoke, drink or use drugs, but:
Is the drug war worth it? (be sure to see #4 at the bottom)
*The Costs of Drug Price Supports*
Cost #1: Taxes. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics has moved some of the drug war off the books since 2003; they now count "only those expenditures aimed at reducing drug use, rather than those associated with the consequences of drug use." This Enronically reduces official Federal drug war spending to only 13 billion dollars, from the 19 billion of 2003. The most recent figures provideds on state spending are from 1998, given as 78 billion dollars. Given that the cost-cutting Republicans have been very busy since 1998, I think we can safely say that the actual direct tax costs of the drug war are over $100 billion.
Cost #2: The high prices of illegal drugs. All estimates of this cost are suspect (they are provided by those with a vested interest in making the problem appear as big as possible). But while the actual number of drug users may be open to debate, there is no question that legal heroin and cocaine only cost about as much as aspirin; marijuana is literally a weed. Now that they are illegal, they cost the economy tens of billions.
Cost #3: Loss of labor. About 1.5 million people were arrested for drug possession and/or sale in 2003. The overall US prison and jail population is over 2 million. Let’s say roughly half that number is related to the drug war. When each drug user is criminalized, they turn from a worker making an average of $40,000 to an inmate costing around $30,000; that would be another $70 billion or so annually.
Cost #4: Real (not victimless) crime. Murder has soared since the Drug War expanded in the 1970s.
Other crime rates attained heights in recent decades that make the Wild West look like Amish country. Inner-city youth can find easy "careers" as drug distributors. If drugs were legalized, these careers would disappear, along with drive-by shootings and "gangsta culture."
Cost #5: Terrorism. Every half-baked wannabe dictator with a few AK-47s can fund his nonproductive lifestyle with illegal drug sales. From the Taliban to the FARC in Colombia, US-designated "terrorist" groups make money from the US drug trade. If cocaine and heroin cost no more than aspirin, all these moochers would have to get real jobs.
And of course, all the law enforcement effort and prison space that goes into catching and jailing marijuana users is not available to look for murderers and terrorists. After 9-11, supposedly our politician’s security priorities changed… but they didn’t. Any serious attempt to catch terrorists smuggling weapons (or low-flying drones carrying biological weapons) doesn’t have a chance of finding them among the thundering herds of drug smugglers.
*So…. Why Drug Price Supports?*
Drug Prohibition’s costs are obviously much greater than any possible benefit to the general public. So why does every drug-using political hack from Rush Limbaugh to the most leftist pot-smoking Democrat advocate Drug Prohibition? For the same reason that politicians support price supports for milk or sugar: they increase the power of politicians. All price supports confer arbitrary power on those who administer them. Every "cost" I’ve listed above is a "profit" for the parasitic class. Let’s run through them again:
/Cost #1: Taxes, ~$100 billion./
To the politician, a bureaucracy isn’t a cost. It’s a source of patronage and lucrative contracts.
/Cost #2: The high cost of illegal drugs./
To the politician, an artificially high price isn’t a cost. It’s a source of funds; study the career of Chiang Kai-Shek or any number of US politicians.
/Cost #3: Loss of labor./
The ability to lock political opponents up at will is worth billions to any politician. Not to mention, felons can’t vote or own firearms, so the more convicts, the fewer effective political opponents. Of course politicians’ children may get arrested occasionally for Prohibition violations, but that just makes them more dependent on Dear Old Dad.
And like any other bureaucracy, the prison industry is a source of patronage and contracts.
/Cost #4: Real (not victimless) crime./
There was no Federal gun control in the US until after Prohibition; pre-1935 US citizens had machine guns, artillery pieces, tanks, whatever took their fancy. The first national gun control law was passed in the 1930s, supposedly as an anti-gangster measure; it put a $200 tax on great-Grandpa’s tommy gun. Today’s gun control is justified as an anti- "gangsta" measure; supposedly if we confiscate Grandma’s .38 revolver, this will prevent drive-by shootings from inner-city youth using illegal full-auto AKs. While not heavily dependent on logic, the contemporary support for gun control is driven largely by the violence caused by Prohibition.
/Cost #5: terrorism./
Needless to say, terrorism is not a "cost" to those who want to expand government power. Drug Prohibition can be used by the US Imperator as a /casus belli/ against any nation anywhere, for what nation does not "harbor" evil drug lords who sell their wares in the US? Even the sinister Canadians have numerous websites selling cut-rate pharmaceuticals to America’s elderly poor. Drug Prohibition can be used as an excuse to give foreign aid to literally any regime; even the Taliban received "anti-drug" money.
Copied from a Libertarian site (
www.Mises.org) and I agree!
