Not Only Liberals Support Changes in Drug Laws

October 21, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Following yesterday’s announcement of changes in policy with regards to marijuana, Kathleen Parker argues that changing the policy on medicinal use is not enough. She also notes the changes in the types of people supporting legalization, with this no longer being limited to liberals:

By ever-greater numbers, Americans support decriminalizing at least marijuana, which millions admit to having used, including a couple of presidents and a Supreme Court justice. A recent Gallup poll found that 44 percent of Americans favor legalization for any purpose, not just medical, up from 31 percent in 2000.

The highest level of support, not surprisingly, is in the Western states and among self-described liberals, with 78 percent of liberals favoring decriminalization. But the shift toward a more sensible national policy is no longer confined to the left. Nor is the long-haired stoner the face of the pro-pot lobby. Today’s activist, more likely, doesn’t have facial hair, but she does have kids.

Lately to the smallish conservative crowd, notably once led by anti-prohibitionist William F. Buckley, is Jessica Corry of Colorado, a married, pro-life Republican mom, soon to be “freedom fighter of the month” in High Times magazine.

Recent partakers undoubtedly will have to rub their eyes for a double take when they spot Corry, who spoke last month at a NORML conference (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in San Francisco, wearing an American flag lapel pin, a triple strand of pearls and a gold marijuana leaf pin.

Another day, another stereotype in the dust bin.

Posted in Drug Policy, Op-eds. Tags: , . 3 Comments »

Obama Administrations Announces Change in Marijuana Policy

October 19, 2009 — Ron Chusid

AP reports on a change in policy with regards to medicinal  marijuana from the Obama administration. This comes in response to the policy under George Bush to ignore state laws, again demonstrating that many Republicans are only concerned about states’ rights when it suits their policies. From AP:

The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Posted in Drug Policy, Health Care. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

Decriminalization of Drugs in Portugal

August 31, 2009 — Ron Chusid

The Economist reports that decriminalization of drugs in Portugal has had benefits and no harmful side effects:

IN 2001 newspapers around the world carried graphic reports of addicts injecting heroin in the grimy streets of a Lisbon slum. The place was dubbed Europe’s “most shameful neighbourhood” and its “worst drugs ghetto”. The Times helpfully managed to find a young British backpacker sprawled comatose on a corner. This lurid coverage was prompted by a government decision to decriminalise the personal use and possession of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine. The police were told not to arrest anyone found taking any kind of drug.

This “ultraliberal legislation”, said the foreign media, had set alarm bells ringing across Europe. The Portuguese were said to be fearful that holiday resorts would become dumping-grounds for drug tourists. Some conservative politicians denounced the decriminalisation as “pure lunacy”. Plane-loads of foreign students would head for the Algarve to smoke marijuana, predicted Paulo Portas, leader of the People’s Party. Portugal, he said, was offering “sun, beaches and any drug you like.”

Yet after all the furore, the drug law was largely forgotten by the international and Portuguese press—until earlier this year, when the Cato Institute, a libertarian American think-tank, published a study of the new policy by a lawyer, Glenn Greenwald.* In contrast to the dire consequences that critics predicted, he concluded that “none of the nightmare scenarios” initially painted, “from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for ‘drug tourists’, has occurred.”

Mr Greenwald claims that the data show that “decriminalisation has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal”, which “in numerous categories are now among the lowest in the European Union”. This came after some rises in the 1990s, before decriminalisation. The figures reveal little evidence of drug tourism: 95% of those cited for drug misdemeanours since 2001 have been Portuguese. The level of drug trafficking, measured by numbers convicted, has also declined. And the incidence of other drug-related problems, including sexually transmitted diseases and deaths from drug overdoses, has “decreased dramatically”.

Posted in Drug Policy, International. Tags: , . 1 Comment »

Two Cops Advise Legalization of Drugs

August 17, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Neill Franklin, a 32-year law enforcement veteran, have written an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for legalization of drugs in order to decrease violence and give decimated neighborhoods a chance to recover. Both are members of f Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Here is a portion:

Drug users generally aren’t violent. Most simply want to be left alone to enjoy their high. It’s the corner slinger who terrifies neighbors and invites rivals to attack. Public drug dealing creates an environment where disputes about money or respect are settled with guns.

In high-crime areas, police spend much of their time answering drug-related calls for service, clearing dealers off corners, responding to shootings and homicides, and making lots of drug-related arrests.

One of us (Franklin) was the commanding officer at the police academy when Arthur (as well as Moskos) graduated. We all learned similar lessons. Police officers are taught about the evils of the drug trade and given the knowledge and tools to inflict as much damage as possible upon the people who constitute the drug community. Policymakers tell us to fight this unwinnable war.

Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies — and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men — have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn’t work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.

Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

Posted in Drug Policy, Op-eds. Tags: . 1 Comment »

Beginning The War on “The War on Drugs”

July 20, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Mother Jones Drug Cover

It takes a long time for public opinion to change on some issues but sometimes we reach a tipping point where old ideas begin to be abandoned. In 2006 the Republicans won in many states by making an issue of same sex marriage. Today many see their opposition as being a factor which has caused young voters to abandon the party and speed up their decline. Other aspects of the culture wars will take longer to change. At this point we seem to be far away from ending the war on drugs but there is increased discussion of the issue and some signs of hope that it will be possible in the foreseeable future for politicians to discuss change. Mother Jones has devoted an issue to the topic and began with noting any absurdities of the drug war:

…the drug war has never been about facts—about, dare we say, soberly weighing which policies might alleviate suffering, save taxpayers money, rob the cartels of revenue. Instead, we’ve been stuck in a cycle of prohibition, failure, and counterfactual claims of success. (To wit: Since 1998, the ONDCP has spent $1.4 billion on youth anti-pot ads. It also spent $43 million to study their effectiveness. When the study found that kids who’ve seen the ads are more likely to smoke pot, the ONDCP buried the evidence, choosing to spend hundreds of millions more on the counterproductive ads.)

What would a fact-based drug policy look like? It would put considerably more money into treatment, the method proven to best reduce use. It would likely leave in place the prohibition on “hard” drugs, but make enforcement fair (no more traffickers rolling on hapless girlfriends to cut a deal. No more Tulias). And it would likely decriminalize but tightly regulate marijuana, which study after study shows is less dangerous or addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, has undeniable medicinal properties, and isn’t a gateway drug to anything harder than Doritos. (Watch Clara discuss the Doritos theory at the 00:12:54 mark of this video, and see “The Patriot’s Guide to Legalization.”

So why don’t we have a rational drug policy? Simple. Forget the Social Security “third rail.” The quickest way to get yourself sidelined in serious policy discussion is to stray from drug war orthodoxy. Even MoJo has skirted the topic for fear of looking like a bunch of hot-tubbing stoners. Such is the power of the culture wars, 50 years on.

After skirting the issue in the past they are now willing to address it, as others occasionally do. There’s still a long way to go before public opinion changes, but at least the process is starting to move a little more towards the mainstream.

Posted in Drug Policy. Tags: , , , . 10 Comments »

What if Tobacco Was Treated Like Marijuana?

June 25, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Derek Thompson compares the laws on tobacco to those on marijuana. He uses Barack Obama as an example of someone trying to stop using tobacco:

Altria and other tobacco companies, Saletan said, are increasingly feeling the heat to make alternative tobacco products — like tablets and snus — contain fewer carcinogens in reaction to public opinion on the issue of tabacco safety.

But at the same time, the government would be insane to outlaw cigarettes. People will just find other places to buy them. Obama, as Saletan rightly notes, has had every reason to quit smoking — for his wife, his kids, the Fox News cameras — and he’s still struggling. What happens when you outlaw a product with that kind of demand that cannot be met by the legal market? It goes underground.

Which brings us to drugs. The government’s effort to manage tobacco rather than make it illegal is exactly what belongs in the debate over pot and other illegal substances that could, at the very least, provide significant boons to medical pharmacology. The FDA has rejected the possibility of making cigarettes illegal by saying the underground product would be “even more dangerous than those currently marketed.” So when you make popular products illegal, it has the potential to make those products more dangerous. Gee, ya think?

Posted in Barack Obama, Drug Policy. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

Supreme Court Rules Against School Performing Strip Search For Ibuprofen

June 25, 2009 — Ron Chusid

In April I noted a case going to the Supreme Court involving the strip searching of a teenage girl at school to search for suspected contraband Ibuprofen. The court ruled today that her rights were violated. The New York Times reports:

In a ruling of interest to educators, parents and students across the country, the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, on Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl by school officials who were looking for prescription-strength drugs violated her constitutional rights.

The officials in Safford, Ariz., would have been justified in 2003 had they limited their search to the backpack and outer clothing of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade at the time, the court ruled. But in searching her undergarments, they went too far and violated her Fourth Amendment privacy rights, the justices said.

Had Savana been suspected of having illegal drugs that could have posed a far greater danger to herself and other students, the strip search, too, might have been justified, the majority said, in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter.

“In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear,” the court said. “We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”

In fact, no pills were found on Savana when her underwear was examined by two school officials, both women, who were acting on a tip passed along by another student.

Thursday’s ruling sends the case back to the lower courts to assess what damages, if any, should be paid by the school district. But, by a vote of 7 to 2, the Supreme Court held that the individual officials in the case should not be held liable, because “clearly established law” at the time of the search did not show that it violated the Fourth Amendment.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Courts, Drug Policy, Education. 4 Comments »

Drug Czar Calling For Ending Drug War

May 14, 2009 — Ron Chusid

So far this is just talk and I’ll want to see more actual changes in policy, but at least the drug czar is saying the right things about ending the war on drugs:

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with. Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.

The drug czar doesn’t have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn’t yet focused on U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.

Posted in Barack Obama, Drug Policy. Tags: , . 1 Comment »

Reasons For Optimism For Libertarianism

May 9, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Libertarian views of Barack Obama have varied widely, largely because the wide variety of people who use this label. I noted during the election that many libertarians were backing Obama, while other libertarians echo the view of him from the far right. David Boez takes a pretty optimistic view of the direction we are heading. He see a positive trend for civil liberties, and discusses issues such as legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage in depth. He concludes:

The “shift to the left” that we seem to observe on economic policy is depressing to libertarians. But that’s mostly crisis-driven. When the results of more spending, more taxes, more regulation, and more money creation begin to be visible, we may see the kind of reaction that led to Proposition 13 and the election of Ronald Reagan at the end of the 1970s. Meanwhile, this cultural “shift to the left” is far more encouraging. And don’t forget, at 90 days into the Obama administration, Americans preferred smaller government to “more active government” by 66 to 25 percent.

Boez is also taking a far more realistic viewpoint than is coming from many economic conservatives in realizing that current economic policy is in response to a crisis and does not reflect the overall direction the country is heading in. On the other hand, the crisis has ensured that opposing all regulation will not be taken very seriously as it was during the Reagan years. We now even have supporters of the Chicago School such as Richard Posner (author of Capitalism in Crisis) arguing that deregulation of the banking industry went too far.

The apparent contradiction between supporting smaller government and supporting the actions of the Obama administration has other possible explanations beyond response to a crisis. This is partially due to the difference between small government and limited government. When many libertarians and conservatives talk of small government they are literally talking of the size of government. They are looking at how much money the government spends, how many people it employees, how many rules are on the books, and how many government agencies we have.

For many other people the important issue is not the actual size but how government impacts upon their lives. To many voters a liberal version of limited government is far preferable to conservative small government which is more intrusive in our lives. Many people do not see a government, regardless of size, which restricts civil liberties, interferes with reproductive rights, criminalizes marijuana, intervenes in marriage decisions, intervenes in end of life decisions, and embraces the social policies of the religious right as being small at all.

Even when considering the types of issues conservatives are more likely to consider when speaking of small government, the views of many voters are not entirely clear. People will say in general they want small government, but are also unwilling to give up many of the services provided by government. Most voters do not want to give up Medicare or Social Security and most voters recognize a need for changes in our health care system, even if it results in higher taxes.

Some of the statements of support for small government come from listening to the rhetoric of the right. We constantly hear that there are government programs which spend lots of money, employ lots of people, and do nothing for us in return. Naturally everyone will agree that we should get rid of such government programs. Now we just have to find them. While there is certainly some waste which can be eliminated, it is doubtful that any truly wasteful programs which can be identified will amount to a very large percentage of the actual size of government.

Libertarians need to decide what really matters. If the actual number of government employees and government agencies is the key issue in their lives they are not going to be happy with the direction the country is going in. However, if they look at the fundamental questions of whether people are becoming more or less free in running their own lives, and free from interference from government, then Boez is right that there are real reasons for optimism.

Posted in Barack Obama, Civil Liberties, Drug Policy, Economy, Libertarianism, Polls, Ronald Reagan, Social Issues. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Webb Believes Marijuana Legalization Should Be On The Table

April 24, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Jim Webb is open to considering decriminalization or legalization of  marijuana as a part of prison reform:

“Well, I think what we need to do is to put all of the issues on the table,” Webb said this morning on CNN if asked if marijuana legalization would be part of his criminal justice reform efforts.

“If you go back to 1980 as a starting point, I think we had 40,000 people in prison on drug charges, and today, we have about 500,000 of them,” the first-term Virginia lawmaker said. “And the great majority of those are nonviolent crimes — possession crimes or minor sales.”

Webb joins several other lawmakers who have called for the exploration of legalized pot, amidst a drug war in Mexico fueled by revenues from American drug sales.

“I think they should examine every aspect of drugs policy to see what’s working and what’s not working, and where the consistencies are and, quite frankly, where the inconsistencies are in terms of how people end up in the system with similar activities,” Webb explained, reiterating his call for a high-level blue ribbon commission to reform the criminal justice system.

“Nothing should be off the table,” he said.

Posted in Congress, Drug Policy. Tags: , . 6 Comments »

Strip Searching of Teen Goes Before Supreme Court

April 22, 2009 — Ron Chusid

NPR’s Morning Edition and The Los Angeles Times report on a case before the Supreme Court in which a school is being sued for strip searching a thirteen year old girl in search for drugs. The school’s behavior was so outrageous that even some conservative bloggers are supporting the ACLU on this one.

The student was an honors student with no history of problems. The school’s lawyer rationalized this by arguing that this is only evidence that she had never been caught. In other words, students are to be considered guilty regardless of how well they have behaved.

The drug problem in the school which led to this investigation was  prescription-strength 400 mg Ibuprofen. That’s the equivalent of two over the counter Advil which contain 200 mg of Ibuprofen. The schools lawyer argued, “School administrators are not pharmacologically trained in being able to assess the relative dangers any one drug might present.” It hardly takes much training in pharmacology to add 200 plus 200 to figure out that the 400 mg Ibuprofen pill found hardly gave justification for such a search.

The lawyers on each side continued to argue their positions:

“Children call their private parts their private parts for a reason. They not subject to exposure, to observation by school officials. When children are strip-searched, they experience trauma that’s similar in kind and degree to sexual abuse,” says Wolf.

School lawyer Wright counters, “We just have to ask ourselves, as a policy matter, do you really want a drug-free environment? And if you do, then there are going to be some privacy invasions when there is reason to suspect that those drugs are being dispensed on campus, that they’re being used by students.”

I’ll risk not having a drug-free environment if the cost of a drug-free environment is strip searching teenage girls to keep out Ibuprofen.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Courts, Drug Policy, Education. Tags: . 4 Comments »

Joe Klein: Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

April 3, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Joe Klein gives the arguments for legalization of marijuana:

As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most “criminal” country in the world, with 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public. (See the top 10 ballot measures.)

At the same time, there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone. And that’s probably a fraction of the revenues that would be available — and of the economic impact, with thousands of new jobs in agriculture, packaging, marketing and advertising. A veritable marijuana economic-stimulus package! (Read: “Is Pot Good For You?”)

So why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe — with some good reason — that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to “riverboats” and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald’s has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although it’s true that with legalization, those two might not be unrelated.) Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?

Posted in Drug Policy, Op-eds. Tags: , . 5 Comments »

Non Marijuana Smokers For Legalization of Marijuana

March 27, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Daniel Larison (via Andrew Sullivan) thinks that many proponents of marijuana are being counterproductive:

…it seems to me that legalization arguments will never gain much traction if advocates for it are constantly having to mention how they are not like the drug’s stereotypical users or regard the drug’s use as some grievous personal failing. Instead of coming across as a stronger argument, the standard “I’m in favor of legalization, and I’m the farthest thing in the world from a pot smoker!” argument ends up making the argument for legalization less compelling. This is because this kind of argument unintentionally reproduces the stigma against the drug and effectively endorses one of the key claims that supporters of criminalization make. While it is true that there are a great many practical and principled reasons why Americans of all stripes should oppose continued criminalization, for legalization to take hold as something more than a marginal issue that has the sympathies of more than relatively marginal political forces there would need to be a much larger constituency that regards criminalization as an intolerable imposition on one of their preferences.

A problem with this argument is that there really are plenty of us who do not smoke marijuana but who support legalization. This is largely for libertarian reasons of allowing others to make their own choices, even if different from the choices I have made. Nobody argues that all of us who support legalization of gay marriage must be gay. Similarly there is no reason that supporters of legalization of marijuana must be marijuana users.

There are also pragmatic reasons for opposing the drug war such as the increased violence it leads to and increased law enforcement costs. These are also reasons which those of us who don’t use marijuana could see as appealing reasons to support legalization.

I do concede that Larison does have a point. I’ve never felt compelled to preface a post supporting legalization of marijuana with the fact that I do not smoke marijuana (only mentioning it here as it is relevant to the discussion). Showing a need to stress this could be taken as stigmatization.

Posted in Blogs & Social Media, Drug Policy. Tags: , , , . 22 Comments »

DEA Raids Medical Marijuana Dispensary in San Francisco

March 26, 2009 — Ron Chusid

This is certainly disappointing news coming so soon after we were assured the Obama administration was going to put an end to this:

Federal agents raided a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco Wednesday, a week after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signaled that the Obama administration would not prosecute distributors of pot used for medicinal purposes that operate under sanction of state law.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard St. in San Francisco’s South of Market district mid-afternoon.

They hauled out large plastic bins overflowing with marijuana plants and loaded several pickup trucks parked out front with grow lights and related equipment used to farm the plants indoors.

The dispensary had been operating with a temporary permit issued by the Department of Public Health.

“Based on our investigation, we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well,” DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony Williams said in a prepared statement.

Williams, who runs the San Francisco field office that covers a territory stretching from Bakersfield to Redding, would not specify the alleged violations. The information was under court seal.

“As of now, we are prohibited from releasing further details of the case. Items of evidentiary value were seized and no arrests have been made,” Williams said.

A source in San Francisco city government who was informed about the raid said the DEA’s action appeared to be prompted by alleged financial improprieties related to the payment of sales taxes. DEA Special Agent Casey McEnry, spokeswoman for the local office, would not comment on that information.

Perhaps further information will show that this was consistent with Holder’s previous statements but this is still not a good sign.

Incidentally, this came on a day in which Obama had an online town hall which was dominated by questions about marijuana. This could be a sign of how much national interest there is in the topic, or a sign that NORML was successful in getting people to ask desired questions. Obama continued to express opposition to legalization of marijuana.

Posted in Barack Obama, Drug Policy. Tags: , . 7 Comments »

Harvard Economist Calls For End of Drug Prohibition To Reduce Violence

March 24, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Harvard economist Jeffery Miron calls for legalization of drugs:

Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.

Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this “war on drugs.”

The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.

Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it’s permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.

See his full op-ed for multiple reasons as to why legalization is the right policy.

Posted in Drug Policy, International, Op-eds. Tags: , . 4 Comments »
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