All Drugs Should be Legalized, Even Hard Drugs!

Could you use some extra money about now?  What would you do with it?  Buy a new flat panel TV, iPhone, a new car, fund a sport for your kids at school, take a vacation, or get some nice new clothes?  But suppose you can’t afford any of the above at this particular moment.  So what do you do about it?  Simple: You go without or earn some more money.  Here’s a thought:  Why not get a gun and rob a convenience store?  Don’t be ridiculous you say?

Instead of the above, suppose you needed a meth or crack “fix.”  Does that change anything?  Apparently so, in that the urge to get high on these drugs is so strong, you are inclined to do anything to achieve that end.  This is just one of a very many reasons we should legalize ALL drugs. 

The conventional wisdom is very easy to follow and agree with.  Drugs ruin people’s lives.  Once a person gets hooked, he or she is perfectly content to sit around all day and all night just enjoying his or her euphoria. 

But there is a whole host of reasons why ALL drugs should be legalized:

1. Criminalizing drug use and sales has not worked.
2. Law enforcement takes a huge bite out of our tax dollar.
3. Cost in dollars to incarcerate offenders is very high.
4. Cost in lives and injuries to offenders, law enforcement, and robbery victims is unconscionable.
5. Lost productivity, not just from the drug users but from the otherwise potentially talented drug dealers, is very real.
6. Cost in lost revenue from the fact drug dealers do not typically report their earnings on income tax returns
7. But drug use would spin out of control if ALL drugs were legalized. Many more people would become addicted to drugs than at present.

Let’s examine these points in a bit more detail, under the stark light of reality:

1. Are fewer people using drugs today than they did 10, 20, 50 years ago?  Of course not.  It’s very clear we are losing the “war on drugs” just like we “lost the war on prohibition.” The following table is from a recent report from the USCG:

Table 1: Cocaine Removal Rate

FY 2004 Actual	FY 2005 Actual	FY 2006 Actual	FY 2007 Actual	FY 2008 Target	FY 2008 Actual	FY 2009 Target
30.7%	27.3%	25.3%	32.6%	28.0%	33.8% (est.)1	23.8%

Source: http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_09-27_Feb09.pdf

Although the “removal rate” has remained stuck below 1/3, the budget for drug interdiction has doubled in just a few years to its current level of 1.3 BILLION dollars for the USCG alone. This is not the CG’s budget but just the estimated drug interdiction portion of it. http://www.uscg.mil/posturestatement/?topPage=budgetinbrief&subPage=fy2010appropriationsummary.

Speaking of the “removal rate,” I wonder how Walmart could survive if it had a shoplifting rate of 25%.  Yet illicit drug rings seem to do just fine losing more than a quarter of their inventory before it even reaches our shores.  How can this be?  Because Walmart doesn’t have a 1,000% mark up! And those removal rates are just for the US Coast Guard.  I do believe the FBI, county sheriffs, and local police intercede in the distribution of drugs to some extent too.  Even with 50% attrition in inventory, what does it matter when the criminalization of drugs enables a 1000% markup?  So what if a drug dealer is left with a mere 500%?  So of course, it keeps on coming. 

1. I crossed the Caribbean Sea twice in a small boat.  Both times, I was overflown in the middle of the night by what sounded like a C-130 Hercules “on the deck.”  This aircraft probably had sophisticated tracking equipment and was there for likely just one reason: Drug interdiction.  I was 100 miles from the nearest land and not bothering anybody.  But I MIGHT have been carrying drugs from S. America.  The US Coast Guard is a large and expensive operation.  Do you think it is there primarily to protect our shores from foreign invaders?  Yes, somewhat.  But a huge share of their budget is devoted to drug interdiction, 1.3 billion dollars last year as we have seen.
2. Think for a moment how much this logic costs society.  There is the huge drain on our court resources together with incarceration expense.  In 2004, 19.5% of all inmates were in prison for drug offenses. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p06.pdf
   We spend $60 billion per year to incarcerate our prisoners which comes to just under 12 billion dollars for the drug offenders alone.  We actually have to feed, clothe, and house persons (drug dealers) who are otherwise capable of holding down a job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States  That number is just for Federal prisons.  I have not checked on State prisons and local jails where the 30 days to 12 month sentences are administered. Those figures are quite likely double the federal stats.
3. You can hardly pick up a newspaper that does not contain a report on some raid on a drug dealer or retaliation killing of a law enforcement official, judge, or prosecuter by a drug leader.  Because the demand for illegal drugs in the US is so strong, shootings are occurring all over the world in turf battles or police raids, most specifically Mexico and Colombia.  And it’s not just the bad guys; DEA cops are being killed or wounded as well, not to mention all the innocent bystanders.  In addition to all of that carnage, we have the astounding fact that a convenience store operator is one of the most dangerous occupations!  Do you think it could be because when an addict needs a fix that costs $200 (usually at night), he goes to where the money is available then?  http://www.crimemagazine.com/convenie.htm.  But we knew that already just from watching or reading the local news.  What would happen to the murder rates occurring in convenience stores throughout the country if you could obtain crack cocaine and meth $10.00 instead?  What would happen to the illegal drug industry?  There is no argument that it would collapse instantly.
4. Some of our young adults of high school age are content to work in menial jobs all their lives.  And that’s good because we need people like that.  Others are more driven to succeed with income (after taxes) the usual yardstick of success.  Let’s say you are an ambitious, inteligent 18 year old trying to make a career decision.  You could consider becoming a doctor, a lawyer, or maybe a computer software engineer.  However, that requires a lot of capital (for your education) and a 4-9 year commitment on your part.  But if you can buy–or grow–a substance that costs a dollar to produce that you can resell for $100, you might conclude that would be a faster way to achieve “success.”  You could be driving a nice car and be able to pay the rent on a nice apartment in six months as opposed to six years.  Can you see how our insane drug laws sap talent out of our young work force?  What does that cost society in lost production?
5. Let’s do a study of 1,000 drug dealers and compare the income tax they pay compared to 1,000 legitimate earners.  Have you stopped laughing yet?
6. Of course the big argument in favor of drug criminalization is that, if drugs were legal, many more people would become addicted.  But let me pose  two questions to get the discussion going:
   1. Who amongst us cannot already obtain some crack cocaine if we wanted to?  Not me.  Not directly.  But I could call someone I know and I bet that person would know who to call to get some, and probably yet tonight if I pushed it.  Or, maybe, at worst, the second person receiving a call would have to call a third.  Thereafter, I would be calling the 2^nd or 3^rd person directly.  Hence, criminalizing crack cocaine or meth does not stop anyone from obtaining it that would like to get it some anyway.
   2. Who amongst us would, were it legal, buy some crack, meth, heroin, just to “give it a try?”  Maybe some but very few and not in connection with what follows:

In conjunction with legalizing ALL drugs, there would be a strict policy.  You would probably have to take a short class before you could purchase $200 worth (in today’s street value) of crack cocaine for just $10.  (No, there would not be a $100 tax on it. If we did that, we would be shifting the narcotic from the user to the politician.) In any case, the pharmacist would read the dazzle-orange label (in the shape of a skull and crossbones) on the package to you.  It would say something like, “This drug is highly addictive and will–repeat WILL–ruin your life. After consuming even a small amount of this substance, you will become hopelessly addicted to it with the result you will lose your job, be disowned by your parents, spouse, and family, if you have one, develop skin sores all over your body, get the shakes whenever you have gone more than a couple hours without a “fix”, etc. A woman using this substance will not ever have a normal pregnancy.  In short, you will never be able to work again, play any sports, enjoy a tasty meal, an evening with your friends, etc.”  (I don’t know all the symptoms–and maybe I’ve listed some that don’t exist–but they would be hammered home in a manner like that).  “In addition, your lifespan will be shortened by 15 years” (or whatever it is).”  There might even be a table listing expected life spans of 20 year olds, 30 year olds, etc., with columns for non users and for addicts dramatizing the shortening effect (if there is any, I don’t know).   When finished reading the label, the pharmacists would say, “Do you understand the ways in which this drug will ruin your life?”  And if the answer is, “Yes, I do,” the pharmacist would say, “That’ll be 10 bucks please.”

Warnings would be proportionately less ominous for less addicting drugs like marijuana.  Would more people use marijuana if all they read is that, although it is not biologically addictive (if it isn’t), it is psychologically addictive and causes lung cancer faster than cigarettes?  Maybe so but then that’s as it should be.  There is not much of a case for marijuana being more harmful or addictive than alcohol, as far as I know.  And we all learned how effective prohibition was against the deleterious drug, alcohol.

Any person who makes it through all those warnings and still wants to try the drug, he or she would probably have done so anyway, legal or not.  Consider how people normally get hooked: they’re at a party where either another user or a pusher says, “Hey dude, wanna get high?”  “What is this stuff,” the prospect might say.  “It’s the best drug I’ve ever had.  I’m sure you’ll like it.  Maybe it’s a man asking a woman or vice versa.  How easy it is to “just try it this one time,” in the world of today’s illegal drugs.

Of course none of these warnings would faze existing addicts.  They would just be happy they didn’t have to burglarize a home to get the money to satisfy their habit.  Or, at worst, commit crimes 1/20^th as often.  And so would we.

If it turned out the number of addicts increased slightly as a result of this decriminalization of ALL drugs (a result I would highly doubt), I would still not call the program a failure.  Even if true, all of the shootings, cop killings, car bombs, kidnappings, etc. would still have been completely eliminated.  A drug addict at least has a chance.  A cop or DEA agent killed in a drug raid or undercover operation has no chance.  He’s already dead.

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Tags: drug legalization "hard drugs" decriminalization "drug lords" "drug cartels"