Last week, Instructor Jonathan Parent offered a promising picture of a world of reduced crime because of legalized drugs in his piece titled, “Why is the legalization of drugs still a controversial issue?” His argument that the legalization of all drugs will completely end the drug trade is overly optimistic and painfully naïve.
But because Instructor Parent, through his own admission, is simply unable to see the other side of the argument, or even the flaws in his own, I will present them for him.
Quite simply, while legalizing drugs is the easiest solution, it’s not the best. Legalizing drugs will not cause usage to diminish, but rather only increase it, leading to higher healthcare costs. More importantly, the legalization of all drugs will not end the drug trade.
Instructor Parent incorrectly stated, “In the first place, [making drugs illegal] doesn’t work. Much like alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century, there will always be a demand and therefore a supply.”
In fact, while there was a black market for the product, alcohol consumption did decrease—a lot: Prohibition resulted in startling reductions in alcohol consumption (over 50 percent), need for treatment for cirrhosis of the liver (63 percent), admissions to mental health clinics for alcohol psychosis (60 percent), and arrests for drunk and disorderly conduct (50 percent). It’s fine to say that you disagree with the principles of prohibition, but don’t just blatantly ignore the fact that it achieved its goal.
Further more, as a society, we cannot afford to legalize drugs, financially or morally. As John Hawkins aptly noted in Human Events: “While it’s true that we may not ever win the war against drugs—i.e. never entirely eradicate the use of illegal drugs—we’re not ever going to win the war against murder, robbery and rape either. But our moral code rejects each of them, so none—including drugs—can be legalized if we still adhere to that code.”
If drugs were to be legalized, usage would certainly increase.
In the Netherlands, once marijuana was legalized, drug use increased from 15 percemt to 44 percent.
This, coupled with the effects of drugs, could provide economic consequences, nullifying Instructor Parent’s claim that legalization would be an economic stimulate.
Increased usage would lead to increased abuse, and increased health costs—especially under a universal healthcare system that Instructor Parent would no doubt support. This is seen best by the intoxicant that is already legal and already taxed: alcohol.
Bloomberg Business Week reports, “The U.S. collects about $8 billion yearly in taxes from alcohol. The problem is, the total cost to the U.S. in 2008 due to alcohol-related problems was $185 billion, and the government pays about 38 percent of that cost (approximately $72 billion), all due to consequences of alcohol consumption.” It’s easy to see that it’s an ineffective tax system when our government is forced to spend $9 (on alcohol related health problems) for every dollar taken in from taxation.
Addressing Instructor Parent’s final point, legalization will not “be an instant solution to the problem of fighting the cartels abroad.” The notion is simply erroneous and lacks a fundamental understanding of the intricate events involved.
According to Foreign Policy last June, “The cartels are becoming less like traffickers and more like mafias…As they have grown in size and ambition, like so many big multinational corporations, they have diversified. The cartels are now active in all types of illicit markets, not just drugs.”
Antonio Mazzitelli, head of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime office in Mexico City, adds, “Mexico is experiencing a change with the emergence of criminal organizations that, rather than being product-oriented—drug trafficking—are territorial based.”
The increase in violence that Instructor Parent notes is not due to the drug trade. Rather, it is the result of these organizations shifting to a focus on protection rackets and territorial control. Legalizing drugs will hardly have an effect on the violence.
So what can we do? We can start by mending a broken system. It must be understood that, as a nation, we can do better. The current system is not the best we can implement, but making a 180-degree shift in policy, as Instructor Parent insists, will not make our society stronger.
Instead, we must work to fix and adjust the system, starting with the Rockefeller Drug Laws right here in New York. Enacted in 1973 by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the laws were originally meant to target major dealers. Forty years later, however, they are the biggest part of the problem in our state.
The laws force judges into a legal straightjacket, unable to rule on a case-by-case basis. This means that no matter how minor the offense, defendants must receive harsh sentences. Currently, 22 percent of our prison population is made up of these non-violent, often first time, drug offenders.
The Rockefeller Drug Laws also restrict the ability of judges to divert people using drugs into treatment, which has proven to be far more effective and cheaper than prison at reducing drug use and abuse.
If we want to seriously address the drug problem, we should start here. Let’s make sure drug use is not tolerated, but that those who make mistakes can be helped.
Now that readers have seen that, contrary to Instructor Parent’s belief, both sides of the issue exist, one can choose for one’s self. I have accepted instructor Parent’s challenge, but it wasn’t a difficult one. Rather, we should all challenge ourselves to leave our world better than the state in which we found it.
It is often tempting to choose the easiest alternative as the best, but if we truly want to make a difference for the better, we must wisely and cautiously adjust policy and shift course.
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You need to do a little more research. Alcohol Prohibitoin did result in a reduction in consumption, at first. It only lasted 13 years though and by the end of Prohibition consumption was back up to close to pre-Prohibition levels. Prohibition did not achieve its goal. Organized crime exploded. Corruption was rampant. By the end we had nearly the same social costs because epople were ignoring the law and buying and selling alcohol and drinking anyway, and that was just in 13 years. Imagine how powerful organized crime would have become had we kept that failed experiment going.
You talk about the Netherlands. By “use” you mean first time initiates, people who tried pot, and you’re refering to numbers for young people, not the entire population. That rate did go up after they started allowing pot to be sold from shops with permits, but it was going up everywhere in Western Europe during that time. Dutch marijauna use rates are now middle of the road by European standards, and a good bit lower than our own rates. Did you know that over half of all American adults under 65 have smoked pot? Over half of all young people growing up today will end up smoking it if they haven’t already, as has been the case for several decades in this country now. We aren’t stopping a thing with our laws.
The Ducth can possess it, grow a little of their own, and buy it from shops. Why aren’t they all smoking pot? It’s because it has limited appeal. Scatterbrain potheads aren’t cool there either. Chicks don’t dig stoners. The guys sitting there with the bong at the party in front of the TV with the sound turned off aren’t getting a lot of action. It’s hard to chat up the ladies when you can’t finish your train of thought because you can’t remember what you were talking about. Pot makes a lot of people nervous, whereas alcohol loosens the tongue and gives people confidence. They may sound like idots but not realize it, but they do it with confidence. It’s just not a great social drug and it will never have the same appeal as alcohol. Most people who want to smoke it, already do.
On organized crime in Mexico, when John P. Walters was drug czar under George W. Bush, he said that marijuana is the “beard and butter,” the “center of gravity” for Mexican cartels. Our government has estimated that these organizations make 60% of their income from marijuan sold in the US. A 60% hit in revenues would hurt these organizations, bad. Can they just sell more meth? No, demand is limited for meth and cocaine and heroin. If you add up all the coke, meth and heroin consumed in this country every year, according to our government that only comes up to a few hundred tons, compared to tens of thousands of tons of marijuana. The black market for drugs is mostly a black market for marijuana. With Mexican pot especially, these drugs are all coming from the same people up the line and they go through the same channels. There are millions of participants in the black market for drugs, buyers and sellers. Most are transacting in pot, but since the other drugs are coming from the same people, young people buying pot from the black market are offered these other drugs. Keeping marijuana illegal gives Mexican cartels who sell meth, cocaine and heroin access to our youth.
Most economists disagree with you, including Jeffrey Miron, Ph.D., Harvard Economics Professor and world renowned specialist in underground markets. Here’s a petition to regulate marijuana created by Dr. Miron, signed by 500 highly regarded economists:
http://economics.about.com/od/incometaxestaxcuts/a/legalize_pot.htm
As to your contention that legalizing drugs will increase use
- The World Health Organization studied 17 countries, changes in their drug use rates and changes in their drug policies and found no correlation between the two.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/01/health/webmd/main4222322.shtml
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/90295/
- usage rates in the Netherlands is well below that of neighboring countries
- we have cut tobacco use in half in a completely legal and regulated market without one arrest, a success never accomplished by any prohibition.
- illegal drugs (cocaine, heroin, marijuana and others) are cheaper, more plentiful and less expensive today than they were 30 years ago, while the cost of our drug war has increased 6 fold over the past 20 years accounting for inflation.
- in 1937, prior to its prohibition, the US government reported that 50,000 Americans used cannabis recreationally. Last month 34 million people used it. 100 million people report trying it in their lifetime (one out of three Americans)
Alcohol prohibition:
-alcohol consumption at the end of prohibition was about the same as it was prior to prohibition. Moreover, the initial downturn of use rates may be explained by people’s reticense to report their criminal activity.
- taxation need not cover the net harms of drug use. Any tax we collect on now illicit drugs will be more than the zero dollars we collect now.
-cirrhosis of the liver had been decreasing well before alcohol prohibition, correlation does not equal causation
-prior to alcohol prohibition, about 70 per year died in NYC from alcohol poisoning. After prohibition that figure increased ten fold.
“we’re not ever going to win the war against murder, robbery and rape either”
You are comparing snorting a line of coke or even smoking a joint to murder, robbery and rape? The fallacy of your argument speaks for itself. The harms of drug use will never be as harmful as the mass incarceration of our drug war.
-In 1970, we had about 250,000 people behind bars in America. Now we have 2.5 million and another 5 million on probation.
-75% of our prison population is due to violation of probation. The number one reason for violating parole is a failed drug test.
- the majority of American prisoners are non-violent drug offenders
-We have more people in prison than China which has a population of 1.34 Billion.
-We imprison African Americans at a higher rate than Apartheid South Africa
-more than 80% of American prisoners are people of color.
-in New York City, a young Black man is ten times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than his White counterpart.
-more American Black men (one out of every three) will spend time in prison than graduate from college.
If you do not own your own mind and body, you do not live in a free society.