The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article advocating the decriminalization of drugs. Economists Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy argue the war on drugs has failed, and social costs of continuing with our current laws are too high. Their solution is to legalize drugs use, and eventually the drug market.
The facts seem straightforward. We spend a lot of money trying to prevent drug use ($40 billion they report). Laws against using and selling drugs put very large numbers of men in prison. Like prohibition, criminalization of drugs makes their sale very lucrative—and often dangerous, violent, and destructive of the neighborhoods where business is done. Indeed, whole countries are now convulsed by violence associated with the drug trade.
Given these facts, the argument for legalization isn’t stupid. But it’s not right.
Consider the analogy to no-fault divorce. Back in the day smart people argued that old divorce laws were unworkable, and that they did more harm then good. There’s no fighting social change, we were told, and the punitive divorce laws just make a bad situation worse. Moreover, some argued that existing laws disadvantaged poor people who could not afford to go to Las Vegas for a few weeks to qualify for divorce there, could not pay for lawyers, etc. Better, therefore, to “decriminalize” divorce, as it were. Yes, it might lead to an increase in divorce, but not by much, and in any event the social benefits would far outweigh the negatives.
That’s pretty much the way Becker and Murphy argue. They allow that legalization is likely to lead to some increase in drug use, but they assure us that it won’t be much. And they even predict that decriminalization will take the stigma out of drug use, which will help people get help to beat addiction to drugs. That’s like the argument for no-fault divorce that predicted that taking out the stigma would very likely lead to better outcomes for kids of parents who split up.
I believe we will legalize drugs over the next decades. It fits with the way our meritocracy governs. And I think Becker and Murphy are kidding themselves about the consequences. As has been the case the rest of the cultural revolution of the last fifty years, the meritocrats will use their new freedom wisely, while the weakest and most vulnerable members of society won’t. Drug use will join illegitimacy, family instability, and educational dysfunction as problems to be managed and ameliorated.
Again, the parallel to divorce helps. No-fault divorce became law in many states in the late sixties and early seventies. (It happened quickly, as will legalization of drugs, I think.) During the next decade divorce rates among elites went up. Then they stabilized and went down. Today rich people rarely divorce (the rate is higher than before no-fault, but much lower than most people realize). It’s the rest of society that divorces promiscuously.
The same two-America’s scenario is the likely long-term result of drug legalization. In fact, it’s already the case. My kids went to an inner city high school in Omaha, Nebraska. By their account drinking is widespread, but drug use is almost entirely among the dropouts and non college-bound students. That’s partly a function of criminalization, although underage drinking is illegal, which doesn’t seem to deter the college bound students. Far more relevant is the fact that drugs are more addictive, more powerful, and more destructive that alcohol. Kids well socialized by upper middle class parents are sensitive to these risks, and for the most part they keep their distance.
Legalization? Easier access to drugs will give upper middle class kids an even greater advantage over all the rest. Like divorce, they’ll have the social capital necessary to resist some (but not all) the temptations. The rest? They lack the social capital, and so will be more likely to become victims of the new regime of legal drugs, just as they’ve become victims of no fault divorce and the sexual revolution more broadly.
Discerning the common good requires more than doing calculations to minimize social costs. It involves passing laws and spending sometimes scarce resources to promote and protect a view of what it means to live an honorable and dignified life. That’s why we have laws against drug use, and rightly so. When we get rid of those laws, it will be because we’ve adopted a different view of the common good, one that is agnostic about what it means to live an honorable and dignified life (even as the meritocrats impose a substantive view on their kids). That’s been the trend among secular elites for decades, which is why I think legalization is likely to happen.
January 7th, 2013 | 8:47 am
Having worked in the field, I’ve personally seen families ripped apart, not by drug use, but drug crime prosecution. Sure, parents who deal drugs are irresponsible but the punishment often does more social harm than the crime.
These laws give upper middle class kids a greater advantage. Their parents aren’t in prison or out of work because of a criminal record. They can hire high-powered lawyers.
Drug hawks tend to think of drug addicts and dealers as hardened criminals we’d like to get rid of. Imagine it’s your child or sibling. Have a little compassion.
I’m not necessarily for legalization. I think we need more data. My guess is that the optimal solution is a mix of policies depending on the circumstances.
January 7th, 2013 | 9:15 am
I agree with Mr. Reno with regards to drug legalization in general. However, drugs are not just drugs but several types of drugs. The health risks and addictive qualities of heroin are infinitely higher than marijuana. I think Mr. Reno should pay more attention to the comparison with prohibition. There have been, and still are (I grew up in a county in the South where it is illegal to sell alcohol), people who would ban liquor for the same reasons Mr. Reno outlines above. I think when looking at intoxicating substances, we need to look at each one individually. I would support the legalization of marijuana because it has shown to be less addictive than caffeine and the health risks are no greater than tobacco. I would not say the same for methamphetamine and cocaine. That being said, even the punishments for those drugs are too high for the social cost of using them today. In the 1980s, America had a drug problem and responded harshly. Today, rates of drug use are way down below the level they were then. Maybe it is time to scale things back a bit.
January 7th, 2013 | 10:12 am
Well stated argument! And one that can be complimented by observation of the mid-long term effects in European nations like the Netherlands and South American countries which have either legalized or permit/overlook the personal use of many types of “recreational” drugs including hallucinogens and psychedelics.
I never quite understood why one of the favorite arguments of those in favor of drug legalization consists of the claim that cannabis is no more harmful or damaging than legal (but heavily regulated) drugs like tobacco or alcohol. Even if that were a true claim, it would still not be a position based on the good of the substance, nor a positive argument for why it should be legalized. Reminds me of the popular childish arguments: “well, they do it too,” and “But it’s no worse than X that my friend does” and “I could be doing worse things than this”.
Finally, Peter Hitchens, in his argument against the legalization of cannabis, agrees with the point of Reno here that the legalization movement is spearheaded by the affluent and wealthy and will ultimately be devastating to the poor and less fortunate. http://spectator.org/archives/2012/11/13/the-straight-dope-a-telephone/
January 7th, 2013 | 10:20 am
I don’t agree with your analogy between drug use and divorce. the last 15 years at least, there has been a very large anti-drug use message broadcast throughout the whole American society, and it seems to work, at least among those who are likely to take the message to heart, and care about societal norms. Possibly, they’ve also noticed a previous generation’s drug casualties and taken that lesson to heart.
There is no similar anti-divorce message in American society as a whole.
By sa
January 7th, 2013 | 11:01 am
The assertion that drug legalization/regulation would bring higher usage rates ignores what has occurred since the early 1970s. The percentage of Americans who have used an illegal drug has gone from less than 5% to about 40%. The cost of one dose of street heroin has gone from $6 to 80 cents while average purity has also increased. The only drug that has decreased in use during this time is tobacco, which has plummeted from about 65% during World War II to about 20% today. Tobacco, one of the most addictive substances known to man, has never been illegal but many Americans have quit using it for personal reasons that clearly have not been influenced by it’s legal availability. They will decide whether or not to use other drugs for the same reasons.
Prohibition continues unabated for shameful political reasons. It cannot, and never will, reduce drug use or addiction.
Transform’s outstanding book titled, After the War on Drugs: Blueprints for Regulation, provides specific proposals for how drugs could be regulated in the real world. The book is available for free online. If you would like to read it then here it is: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blueprint%20download.htm.
And here’s some info on Swiss Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT).
http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/drogen/00042/00629/00798/01191/index.html?lang=en
At the end of 2009, 1356 patients were undergoing HAT at 21 outpatient centers and in 2 prisons.
HAT is now being carried out at centres in Basle, Bern,…
January 7th, 2013 | 11:49 am
Very good article. I agree with most of it, except the part where it says that drugs are more addictive and powerful than alcohol. Alcohol is a socially accepted drug and has been part of local culture all over the world for years. Are the french all alcoholics as they produce most of the wine on this planet? No!
Alcohol is regarded as being on the same addiction level as cocaine. Taking that very comparison, drink a bottle of vodka or take 1gram of coke, we ll see who is showing the most! Legalizing will undoubtedly go with some abuse, but, over time, this will disappear. Take the NL as an example, it is the EU country where citizens are amongst the lowest consumers of cannabis while you can buy it over the counter. France has some of the most repressive laws against drugs and it is the EU country where the most people smoke pot..make your own conclusions…let s put a stop to public money waste…which still enriches the ones who are pulling the strings!
January 7th, 2013 | 1:55 pm
I wouldnt be half as opposed to the drug war if it didnt lead to a sprawling American Gulag system (defended by public unions and private profiteers alike), rampant corruption in police departments, and unimaginable violence and barbarism in Mexico and Central America.
How do the drug warriors answer for the families ripped apart by the ridiculous mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines (fathers often separated from families for 10+ years, mothers separated from young children)? How do you answer for the millions of minority youth who get saddled with a criminal record and therefore limited job prospects for things that rich white kids and upper class professionals get away with?
And finally, how do you answer for the citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and elsewhere who live in terror of the thugs and murderers we’ve enriched (and armed) to the tune of billions of dollars.
But no! Ending all this would cause inequality! its enough to make one weep.
January 7th, 2013 | 6:11 pm
I don’t know that the problems mentioned in comments mean drug legalization is a good idea. The Japanese and Swedes have pretty strict drug laws. I don’t know that I’ve heard of any “Japanese drug gulags” and pot laws destroying their families. And I’m also skeptical that tobacco is the only drug to decline in use since the 1970s. I’m pretty sure several others have as well. For example quaaludes are used far less now than in the late 1960s when they were legal. Other sedatives and tranquilizers have also declined. I’m not sure even LSD and mescaline are as common as back then.
On the other hand as much as I want to agree with Reno I think some commenters do have a bit of a point that we’re already on a two-tiered system. When Robert Downey Jr or someone rich has a drug problem it’s a “disease” and their lawyers make it where they get plenty of chances at rehabilitation without jail-time. My small town’s drug dealer was from a rich family so also got those chances. (He died of drugs anyway which could argue their harmful even if you receive few legal consequences) If you’re poor you don’t get those chances and you’re just a criminal. Is a Wall Street guy doing powdered cocaine really that much better than some crack addicted inner-city kid? I think the legal system tends to say “yup.”
January 7th, 2013 | 6:14 pm
On the matter of legalization, we have now (or will have soon) some “metrics,” as they say, on the consequences. True, it’s strictly marijuana, but about a dozen states have decriminalized pot, and Colorado has approved it for medical AND recreational use. What I’d like to know is what Colorado is doing with regard to DUI testing. And do any campaigners for legalization there and elsewhere recognize that marijuana smoking has serious long term consequences upon health? If so, I haven’t such concerns expressed.
January 7th, 2013 | 8:43 pm
“In the 1980s, America had a drug problem and responded harshly. Today, rates of drug use are way down below the level they were then.”
You just made Reno’s argument.
January 8th, 2013 | 6:15 am
Far more relevant is the fact that drugs are more addictive, more powerful, and more destructive that alcohol. Kids well socialized by upper middle class parents are sensitive to these risks, and for the most part they keep their distance.
Are drugs as a class ‘more’ than alcohol? More havoc has been wrecked on families and individuals by alcohol than pot for thousands of years.
Culturally we made it easier on alcohol, but does ‘objective evidence’ really support this assertion?
Like divorce, they’ll have the social capital necessary to resist some (but not all) the temptations. The rest? They lack the social capital, and so will be more likely to become victims of the new regime of legal drugs, just as they’ve become victims of no fault divorce and the sexual revolution more broadly.
This model doesn’t make much sense because you neglect to note that lower class kids already live in a regime where drugs are illegal. Yet you also claim drugs is a larger problem among dropouts and non-college bound (which I suppose you’re equating here). This would seem to be the opposite of the divorce pattern you are seeing as analogous….there divorce was desired by the upper class first and mostly rejected by lower classes.
When we get rid of those laws, it will be because we’ve adopted a different view of the common good, one that is agnostic about what it means to live an honorable and dignified life …
Yet your own view of divorce…
January 8th, 2013 | 9:53 am
Jon -
The reason it’s hard to follow that way is because you’re only tracking one step in the argument. It’s attempting clarity on the magnitude of the downside of legalizing marijuana.
The next step is to compare that with the downsides of criminalizing marijuana use. Astonishing incarceration rates with the associated dismantled families, civil forfeiture, intrusive and militarized police tactics, the violence of the suppliers, etc. etc.
Now, if the latter is more harmful than the former… does the argument track better?
January 8th, 2013 | 11:40 am
” Not so. The illegal market already entrenched in many inner-cites is likely to provide less expensive and more accessible…”
This is the thing that always gives me pause about legalization arguments. As long as you can’t buy the stuff at the checkout for the price of a candy bar with no age ID, what makes us think that the black market (and hence the need for criminal prosecuation and punishment) is just going to magically dry up? Blithe historical comparisons to alcohol require ignoring some pretty important differences between the conditions of the illegal drug market now and the conditions of the bootlegging trade then.
Maybe the argument has been made for why being sanguine about the disappearance of the illegal drug trade is warranted, but other than “well you can’t buy beer on every street corner” I haven’t heard them. Never mind that alcohol is vastly more bulky and the illegal trade far more decentralized.
January 8th, 2013 | 12:26 pm
Pentamom, who are you quoting there?
Consider the overhead of the current ‘black market’. Transportation issues (across borders, on highways, ‘employee turnover’ (violence, prosecution, etc.), ‘accounting’ headaches (concealing illegal income is hard; there’s a reason tax evasion and money laundering cases are easier to prosecute), difficult advertising, etc. Legalization eases ‘burdens’ in all of those categories and more besides.
Why would anyone think that the current illegal ‘distribution systems’ would be remotely ‘less expensive and more accessible’? What exactly are the “pretty important differences between the conditions of the illegal drug market now and the conditions of the bootlegging trade then”? Can you explicitly list some?
January 8th, 2013 | 12:29 pm
BTW, speaking of police priorities – how about we at least call a moratorium on nonviolent drug investigations and prosecutions until the roughly half a million untested rape kits in this country are processed?
January 8th, 2013 | 2:22 pm
The ‘dignified and honorable life’ argument has failed. For the last 30 years we’ve increased the laws against most illegal drugs and the lower class’s lives have not increased in dignity, they’ve become less so. Young men who would be embarking on working class careers with the energy of youth have been turned into a de facto criminal class unworthy of serious employment or respect as fathers. Instead they spend their best years either in prison or submitting to monthly urine tests by probation officers. Young women have been told that if they want motherhood with the men they like they cannot expect a traditional family but must be prepared to do it alone. It’s telling that the author above almost equates drop outs with ‘non-college bound’. Only a rhetorical hop skip and jump to equating ‘non-college bound’ with criminal.
It doesn’t follow that the solution is legalization of all drugs in all contexts, but I think the author here is blind to the reality of the times he lives in. We’ve tried it his way for quite a while now and we now have failure. IMO we should explore lowering the criminalization of drugs (that’s NOT the same as legalization, but for some types of drugs it might be), esp. opening up the ability of those with drug convictions not to have their lives robbed from them.
January 8th, 2013 | 5:05 pm
Ray, I was quoting a comment that seems to have unaccountably disappeared.
The most important difference is that you can’t carry enough hooch to send 50 people over the moon in your hoodie, and it’s a heckuva lot harder to smuggle $2M worth of it into the country at a time.
January 8th, 2013 | 5:12 pm
Therefore, the bootlegging trade was always a large-scale operation that quickly became unprofitable when alcohol became legal. The drug trade operates on a much smaller organizational scale, so if it the black market can make available untaxed to underage people, why would creating a taxed, regulated market available only to the qualified, eliminate the black market?
Or maybe I’m wrong, and the availability of legal DVD’s on Amazon for $10 a pop actually did kill piracy?
January 9th, 2013 | 7:20 am
pentamom,
It’s true drugs take up less space than alcohol. Alcohol too, though, has been subject to those economics. That’s why we had a Whiskey Rebellion and Moonshiners smuggled moonshine rather than wine or beer. But I’m not sure it’s all that different. Drugs smuggling and distribution does take a lot of infrastructure…hence the discovery of tunnels going from Mexico to the US
Given it’s not that differnet, it’s telling that there’s no huge black market operation for alcohol. I suppose there’s some illegal moonshine and absinthe happening in the US but aside from tax evasion it’s not a big deal. There is underage drinking but the problem has been at least partially created by having a 21 drinking age rather than 18, which teaches teens to bing drink rather than drink responsibly.
January 9th, 2013 | 9:35 am
Pentamom -
Actually, prohibition shifted alcohol consumption to harder liquors. If you were going to break the law, why bother getting a mild buzz from beer when you could get snockered from whiskey?
And don’t forget inflation. A dollar in 1933, when Prohibition was repealed, was worth ~$17 in today’s money. So, a 75-cent shot of whiskey then is more like $13 today. It doesn’t take all that much liquor to get to $2 million in today’s dollars at that rate. More than fits in a hoodie, true, but you don’t exactly need a full-size tanker truck.
Al Capone’s operation pulled in north of a hundred million dollars a year – before you account for inflation. In modern terms, that’s getting awfully close to two billion dollars a year.
You never heard of bathtub gin? Not large-scale at all, but also became unprofitable once alcohol became legal. At this point, only hobbyists make their own alcohol – and certainly not for profit.
It’s possible to make alcohol at home. I’ve made beer from a kit before; it’s not complicated, it just takes time. (Making it from scratch is a trifle harder – gotta get, and manage and preserve a colony of, brewer’s yeast.) And unlike producing, say, meth, there’s no risk of a fiery explosion. Even distilling alcohol isn’t that…
January 9th, 2013 | 12:19 pm
Huh. My comment got truncated.
…distilling alcohol isn’t that hard, but hardly anyone does it at home.
Underage drinkers don’t make their own alcohol, or buy it from people making their own. They get it by fraud, or by suborning of-age drinkers. Economies of scale drive that sort of thing – both production and quality-control are easier in such situations.
Given that transport of marijuana and other drugs is at least as easy as transporting alcohol, why wouldn’t the exact same economies apply there, too?
January 9th, 2013 | 4:23 pm
Okay, so you’re proving my point, then — legalization doesn’t eliminate the black market!
My purpose for pointing out the differences was to suggest that the black market in alcohol is greatly *reduced* compared to what it was during prohibition, and is no longer an activity of organized crime. This is probably largely due to the fact that it is hard to create *a large amount* (equivalent to what you’d get out of a shipment of cocaine, for example) and distribute it without easy detection. As I said, you can’t put gallons upon gallons of it in your hoodie. Sure, people brew unlicensed stuff here and there, but it isn’t large scale. But that only proves that even something relatively cheap and widely available to those of age is *still* produced on the black market despite legalization.
Now take drugs. Imagine that there would continue to be a market for an unregulated version — for those cut off for medical reasons, for those underage, for those seeking to avoid what would probably be very high taxes (at least most schemes I’ve seen for legalization suggest taxing it highly to pay for the negative social and medical effects.) It is much, much easier to smuggle, process, and distribute than alcohol. Yes, there’s the meth lab thing, but the people who are into meth labs don’t usually rank self-preservation as high as the average person, or they’d be doing something else anyway. Leaving aside the risk, it’s logistically EASY to produce and distribute a vast quantity, compared to alcohol.
So you don’t need a tanker truck? A truck full of bottles is still a lot easier to legally search (and even visually identify for probably cause) than a guy with a few grams of something stuffed down his pants. The difference in bulk DOES matter, a lot.
I guess if it isn’t obvious why something that intoxicates by the gram and can be stored in almost any dry…
January 9th, 2013 | 4:26 pm
Eh, mine got cut off, too.
I’ll just wind up by saying that I’m not trying to make the point that legalization is necessarily a bad idea, or that it won’t reduce the distribution-related crime problem significantly. I’m just saying that I think a lot of legalization advocates close their eyes to the fact that the distribution-related crime problem isn’t going to shrink to complete insignificance as long as there remain *any* restrictions on who can get the stuff, how much, and at what price.
I mean, after all, those bathtub gin guys are law enforcement problem, are they not?
January 9th, 2013 | 8:44 pm
I mean, after all, those bathtub gin guys are law enforcement problem, are they not?
Not really. When was the last time you heard of law enforcement having any real problem with ‘bathtub gin’? There’s still moonshiners in the south but aside from tax evasion they aren’t really giving anyone any real problems. As for ‘distribution crime’, where? When was the last time you heard of moonshiners killing each other over territories?
January 10th, 2013 | 11:32 am
pentamom –
Bootleg alcohol is a problem, still. But it’s a smaller problem by many orders of magnitude than it was during Prohibition. Underage drinking is a problem – but it’s not a directly economic, or violent, or civil liberties problem.
I don’t know of any “legalization advocate” that claims everything will be perfect if we go with legalization. The claim is that things will be overall better if drugs are legalized and regulated than the current ‘drug war’ regime.
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