Alternatives to the War on Drugs-Becker

The 40 year-old American “war on drugs” has been a colossal failure. No progress in dealing with drugs can be expected until that basic truth is recognized. Every conceivable approach has been tried to help the war succeed, such as long prison terms for persons convicted of selling or using drugs, trying to prevent drugs from entering the US from Mexico and other countries, and confiscating huge quantities of drugs (remember The French Connection?). At some point all wars that fail are terminated, and alternative approaches explored.

The two main alternatives to the war on drugs are decriminalization and legalization of drugs. Decriminalizing drugs means that using drugs would no longer be a criminal activity, while trafficking in drugs would remain a crime. Legalization of drugs means that trafficking in drugs as well as using drugs would not be a crime.

With decriminalization, individuals in possession of small quantities of drugs would not be subject to criminal charges, so that they need not fear imprisonment or other punishments. Since eliminating any criminal punishment for using drugs reduces the effective cost of using drugs, decriminalization might increase experimentation with drug use.

At the same time, however, decriminalization might well reduce the fraction of drug users who regularly consume large quantities of drugs, which is usually a sign of drug addiction. The likelihood of becoming and remaining addicted to drugs or other goods is not determined only by personal biological and psychological propensities to become addicted. For example, many individuals end their addictions to smoking and drinking alcohol when they get married, find good jobs, or mature.

The war on drugs makes it much more difficult for individuals who are unhappy about their addictions to cocaine or other drugs to end their addictions. When using drugs is a criminal offense, drug addicts who want to quit hesitate going to drug clinics, or seeking other help, because they are subject to arrest. Although decriminalizing drugs makes it easier to experiment with using drugs, it also encourages the development of for-profit and non-profit organizations that help individuals terminate their reliance on cocaine, heroin, and other addictive drugs. Since smoking and drinking are legal, the non-profit organization AA could develop to help heavy drinkers end their addiction, and profit-making companies had the incentive to create patches to help individuals stop smoking.

The evidence from Portugal, a country that decriminalized all drug use in 2001, offers some support for the claim that decriminalization of drug use will reduce addiction to drugs. A 2010 study in the British Journal of Criminology concluded that decriminalization in Portugal reduced imprisonment on drug-related charges, only slightly increased, if at all, drug experimentation among young persons, increased visits to clinics that help end drug addictions, and reduced deaths from drug overdoses.

As Posner indicates, a growing number of states have decriminalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and a couple of states have decriminalized all uses of marijuana. Effectively, if not legally, marijuana has been decriminalized in a large number of American states, despite its violation of federal law.

Decriminalizing drug use does lead to decriminalization of some drug trafficking as well since some sellers of drugs would only keep small quantities of drugs on their persons in order to claim, if questioned by the police, that they are users rather than sellers of drugs. Still, decriminalization would not by itself end many of the costs of the war on drugs since they involve actions against large-scale traffickers. Only full legalization of the selling as well as consuming of drugs could do that. As Kevin Murphy and I said elsewhere (Wall Street Journal, Jan.5, 2013), “full decriminalization on both sides of the drug market would lower drug prices, reduce the role of criminals in producing and selling drugs, improve many inner-city neighborhoods, encourage more minority students in the U.S. to finish high school, lessen the drug problems of Mexico and other countries involved in supplying drugs {to the U.S.}, greatly reduce the number of federal and state prisoners and the harmful effects on drug offenders of spending many years in jail, and save the financial resources of government”.

In most countries, including the United States, smoking and drinking are rather heavily taxed through so-called “sin taxes”. For those concerned that legalizing drugs would greatly increase the use of drugs, legalization could be combined with a tax on drugs, like these other sin taxes. Some drug transactions might move underground to avoid paying this tax, but most production would remain legal because of the many contractual and other advantages of legally producing drugs.

The retreat from the war on drugs has already begun. The question is whether it will be a sensible retreat with systematic changes in the law toward decriminalization and legalization of drugs, or a disorganized retreat that leaves users and sellers of drugs with unclear legal status.

 

 

 

Comments

[Kevinfrei.blogspot.com]

And boy would legalization reduce gun violence!

[PT Cruiser]

Yes the war on drugs is a failure. The discouragement of drug use is laudable.
Enforcement should continue on the trafficking and distribution level but discontinue on the user level. The product and profits captured from the enforcement of trafficking and distribution could be used to stock complimentary neighborhood dispensaries. This would set up a tension between the "for-profit" and "non-profit" dynamics that would take the cash incentives out of the trafficking and distribution.
Drug testing must be instituted for recipients of government subsidized housing and other safety net programs.

[David Glenn]

Seriously? I still don't agree on this...