Why Drug Laws are Bad for America
England and the Opium Trade
In approximately 1650 opium was first used as a ‘recreational’ drug, smoked with tobacco in China. From this time forward there has been a constant demand for ‘mind altering’ drugs for recreational use. The supply was eventually met by the English empire. As the trade grew, it became obvious to the Chinese that drug use can have negative consequences. The result was the first drug laws in 1729. This did not stop the English and in fact led to the first ‘opium war’ in which England took control of ports and demanded payment for destroyed opium. For almost 300 years, no drug law has been successful.
(For more detail on the Opium Trade, go to: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/om/om15.htm )
Demand will never go away
There has always been a percentage of the human population that will seek out alternative lifestyles and a percentage that have addictive personality types. The fact that drugs are illegal does not bother this group of people… it may in fact be part of the rebellion that is driving them. While removing drug laws would remove a barrier for some, it would remove the appeal for others.
Where a demand exists a supply will be found
We live in the land of the entrepreneur. It there is a buck to be made, an American will find out how to make it happen. While the drug trade has been a constant for over 300 years, Americans are particularly adept. As long as there is a demand, one that can generate a profit, that demand will be met.
The cost of incarceration
(http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/realitycheck/crimetime.html )
Americans now spend about $40 billion a year on incarceration. In 1999, approximately 6.3 million adults-3.1 per cent the U.S. adult population-were under correctional supervision (that is, incarceration, probation, or parole).
The vast majority of crimes committed are committed by individuals under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Of these a large number are property crimes committed by individuals who are in need of money for more drugs or violent crimes related to the high value of drugs in drug transactions ‘gone-bad’. This is the single point where our drug laws have had the most significant unintended consequences… the high price of drugs.
The price of drugs
Illicit drugs are expensive. Some might argue that this is a good thing since it makes access more difficult. In reality, drugs are cheap enough (often free for first time users) that anyone that wants to try them can. After that, those that want them often want them bad enough that they will do what ever it takes to get them.
This is where high drug prices have the single most serious impact on the rest of society. If drugs were cheap, an addict could support themselves (food, shelter) and support their drug habit on a minimum wage job.
It is a natural human characteristic to take the path of least resistance. While working at a minimum wage job may not be appealing to many with a drug problem, it will be much more appealing than the committing crimes that put them at risk.
Hypothetical drug cost with no drug laws
I’ve been told that a kilo of cocaine sells for approximately $10,000. Cut 50% in the process of making crack cocaine, the per kilo price is $5,000.
If there were no drug laws for usage, possession, transportation, importation, distribution or manufacture, there would be a surge in the availability. This surge would cause the price to plummet. While it is difficult to estimate exactly where the price would bottom out, I will offer an estimate of 10% of the current price.
A kilo of crack will support a significant habit (over 2.5 grams per day) for a year. If that kilo now cost $500, the monthly cost to support the habit is under $42. With minimum wage at over $7 an hour a full time minimum wage job will net over $1000 a month. This is enough money to cover food, shelter and a heavy drug habit without needing to commit crime.
Cocaine vs. Methamphetamine
I believe that Methamphetamine is one of the worst parts of this country’s drug problem. The manufacture is extremely dangerous to those in proximity. It often destroys the buildings that it is made in. Its use is very hard on the human body including the destruction of the users teeth commonly referred to as ‘Meth-Mouth’.
Cocaine and opium by comparison are far better. While chemicals are used in purification, they start as plants. Their manufacture does not destroy real-estate or cause a chemical related health hazard like meth does nor do they destroy the user’s teeth.
So why is meth used if the problems of meth are known by the makers and users (and they are)? There is only one answer, money. It’s cheap to make and sells for a lot. This provides incentive to makers and users. Makers can make huge profits and users get a drug that costs less than cocaine.
It is my suggestion that the elimination of drug laws would eliminate meth in America. The hazards to all involved are too high to choose meth if cocaine were readily available at a low price.
Prohibition
You would think that we should have learned our lesson with the prohibition of alcohol. It did not stop usage, it simply created crime. The crimes of possession, usage, transportation, distribution, manufacture and importation. It also increased the corresponding crimes associated with the then illegal alcohol trade and led to the high price of alcohol that fueled organized crime.
Clearly alcohol as well as drugs create the potential for problems and both can be described as ‘bad’. Simply making them illegal based on being ‘bad’ doesn’t work. The problem is the unintended consequences; the fact that making it illegal didn’t stop it, the fact that it increased criminal activity and fueled organized crime.
The freedom to choose to use
This is America. The land of the free… or so it should be. It is becoming the land of restrictions and incarceration.
It is generally accepted that your right to throw a punch ends at the other guy’s nose. When you apply this principal to drug use… the ‘nose contact’ laws are already in place. If you eliminated all the laws for the usage, possession, import, distribution, manufacture and transportation, who would be injured? The answer… no one. The only people that are injured are those that exercise their freedom to live the drug lifestyle if they so choose. Should those individuals break other laws, they should be punished. Those laws are currently in place.
The laws most often related to drug use are also related to its cost. If the cost were eliminated, most of the drug crime would evaporate. This would include property crimes where goods are stolen to feed a habit as well as violence related to drug deals gone bad.
“But it would send the wrong message”
In the many years that I’ve been discussing this topic, this is the closest to a legitimate argument that has been presented. I do believe that dropping the criminal drug laws could be interpreted to mean that drugs are not bad and I do not agree with that opinion.
My suggestion would be to take some of the tens of billions of dollars saved in incarceration costs and use that for a constant anti-drug campaign similar to that used against tobacco.
It has been suggested that nicotine is the single most addictive substance. Tobacco usage is way down in the US even with the addictive characteristics of nicotine. I believe that the anti-tobacco campaign has been the single most effective tool in reducing tobacco usage.
Save money now
I would propose the immediate release of all inmates with charges that are exclusively related to usage, possession, import, distribution, manufacture or transportation. Those that are incarcerated for breaking legitimate laws should finish their sentences or at least have the sentences reduced by the drug related portion.
Government sponsored treatment
With the instant reduction (by an estimated $10 billion) in incarceration costs and fewer people committing new crimes because of the lower cost of their habit (an eventual estimated savings of over $25 billion annually), the government could fund at 100% the cost of drug treatment for any one that wanted it. Drug usage could be a legal choice like alcohol and tobacco. It would also have the same negative social attitude that tobacco and alcohol abuse have. As long as you broke no legitimate laws, you would be free to live your life the way you choose. When you decided that drugs aren’t what you really wanted out of life, you’d have the support you need to transition off.
The war on drugs
This has been a joke from the beginning. Estimates are as low as 1% of the drug traffic is stopped. It is my suggestion that the entire national budget is not enough to stop drug trafficking. I also don’t think that we want to live in a country that is militaristic on that level either. Thailand executes individuals for drug charges and the country still has an estimated 4 million drug users and the infrastructure in place to supply them.
The history of drug laws
From the History Channel – Hooked, Illegal Drugs and how they got that way:
Up to 1906 there were no drug laws. While there was desire to do something (since approximately 5% of Americans were already hooked on morphine and cocaine delivered in patent medicines) the US constitution didn’t allow the restriction.
In 1906 the Food and Drug act required that ingredients be listed on patent medicines, this pushed most patent medicines out of business.
In 1914 by international treaty to ban Opium (that Great Britain has pushed on China for a century) to be backed up by domestic law, the Harrison Tax act was enacted (a bypass of the constitution) which expanded the reach of the constitution by limiting the prescribing practices of doctors, previously a state function.
Cocaine was a last minute addition to the bill, pushed by southern legislators who claimed that ‘Drug Crazed Negros’ were raping white women and killing white families. This was already a popular (albeit racist and with no basis I reality) opinion, in 1901 the Senate passed a bill prohibiting the sale of alcohol and opiates to ‘uncivilized races’.
There was a general belief that a black man on cocaine would rape every white woman in sight.
1920 The Supreme Court creates the black market for cocaine by ruling that addiction is not a disease and that doctors can not prescribe cocaine for it. No longer legally available but with as many as 5% of Americans hooked, the black market for cocaine is born.
Cocaine usage declined during the depression but was back in force by the ‘60s. It was a central part of the Disco ‘70s and became a symbol of the ‘80s representing glamour, power and sex.
President Nixon, after hearing of the massive use of heroin by soldiers in Vietnam was concerned that it could cause us to lose the war. He scrapped all existing drug laws, created the DEA and placed control of illegal drugs under the justice department.
Cocaine usage soars.
Supply side - With a profit margin as high at 17,000% (what costs $1 to make can be sold for $17,000) the supply will never end.
Demand Side – Demand can be reduced by helping those that want help. The drugs work and very high numbers of people want the escape they provide.
Who benefits from drug laws?
Politicians. They know that most people think (and correctly so) that drugs are bad and that they are going to do something about it… only drug laws are worse than drugs.
Drug dealers. If drug laws were removed, there would be no money in it. They may have to get a real job to pay the bills if drug laws were removed.
Drug Warriors. If drug laws were removed the tens of billions of (wasted) dollars funding the war on drugs would no longer be available to pay the salaries of prison guards, police, DEA, courts, etc. These people, along with all bureaucracies, have the primary goal of continued existence… regardless of what is good for the country.
The folly of our time
We can look back through history and laugh at ideas of the time. The world is flat, spontaneous generation (life instantly converting from inanimate objects), the Greek gods, the idea that the earth is the center of the universe and of course, prohibition. In the future people will look back at this time and shake their heads that we were so ignorant to think that we could stop drug demand or supply. That we thought that drug laws would make anything better.
We need to grow up
You tell a child of 5 that a man has a sick wife, that this man can only get the medicine she needs by stealing it. You ask the child what the man should do. The child will tell you that stealing is wrong. The man should not steal.
You ask a 13 year old the same question, you’ll more than likely be asked; ‘how sick is his wife… will she die’?
As a country… we need to mature mentally beyond the age of a 5 year old. We need to realize that while drugs are bad, drug laws are worse.
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