Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition
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Last annotated on July 5, 2016
Federal law first prohibited cocaine, heroin, and related drugs in 1914, and marijuana in 1937.Read more at location 65
In recent years government expenditure for prohibition enforcement has exceeded $33 billion annually, with law enforcement authorities making more than 1.5 million arrests per year on drug-related charges (Miron 2003b).Read more at location 65
Prohibitionists believe drug use would soar if drugs were legal, and they regard any increase as undesirable per se. Prohibitionists also assert that drug use causes crime, diminishes health and productivity for drug users, encourages driving and industrial accidents, exacerbates poverty, supports terrorism, and contributes generally to societal decay.Read more at location 70
I argue here that drug prohibition, rather than drug use, causes most ills typically attributed to drugs.Read more at location 73
I demonstrate that prohibition has a range of negative consequences, including increased violence, reduced health for drug users, transfers to criminals, and diminished civil liberties;Read more at location 75
even if a policy-induced reduction in drug consumption is desirable, prohibition is a terrible choice for achieving this goal.Read more at location 77
Chapter 2 reviews the standard economic analysis of prohibition. The discussion is “positive” rather than “normative,”Read more at location 83
The analysis here shows, however, that prohibition-induced reductions in drug consumption are not necessarily large or even in the “desired” direction. Moreover, prohibition can increase rather than decrease crime and diminish rather than enhance health and productivity.Read more at location 86
corruption, infringements on civil liberties, wealth transfers to criminals, unwarranted restrictions on medicinal uses of drugs, and insurrection in drug-producing countries.Read more at location 88
The first is whether prohibition’s effect on drug consumption is “small” or “large,” and the second is whether prohibition increases or decreases crime.Read more at location 91
Chapter 3 addresses the effect of prohibition on drug consumption by examining cirrhosis death rates during the Prohibition period.Read more at location 96
alcohol prohibition is a natural laboratory for studying the effects of drug prohibition on drug consumption.Read more at location 98
The analysis here indicates alcohol prohibition had a modest effect on alcohol consumption, which implies drug prohibition has a modest effect on drug use.Read more at location 100
Chapter 4 examines the effect of drug prohibition on violence.Read more at location 102
The chapter shows that both drug and alcohol prohibition coincided with increases in the homicide rate, consistent with the view that under prohibition, market participants substitute guns for lawyers in the resolution of disputes.Read more at location 106
Again, the evidence indicates that vigorous enforcement of prohibition is associated with higher rather than lower rates of violence,Read more at location 109
In Chapters 5 and 6, I turn from the positive analysis of drug prohibition to the “normative” analysisRead more at location 111
Chapter 5 addresses this question by discussing under what conditions reduced drug consumption is an appropriate goal of public policy.Read more at location 116
Reduced drug consumption might be an appropriate goal if drug consumption generates externalities or if consumer choices about drug consumption are myopic,Read more at location 118
Chapter 6 therefore asks what policy toward drugs achieves the best balancing of costs and benefits.Read more at location 123
The bottom line is that legalization, with drugs treated like all other commodities, is the best policy for society overall.Read more at location 127
