The War on Drugs

My great & good friend, Jeff Duntemann said today:

"We as a society spend an immense amount of money chasing people who make an immense amount of money selling chemicals for an immense amount of money to people who seem to think ingesting them is worth an immense amount of money—not to mention the risk of jail time . I've never been able to figure the payoff, however..."

The payoffs are specifically those immense amounts of money. All the Prohibition ever does is make gangsters rich, and corrupt cops. (Politicians are, by definition. already corrupt.)

Gangsters spend their ill-gotten gains bribing cops (and the DEA is the worst of that) and persuading legislators to _keep_ drugs illegal, so the price stays high. The actual cost of manufacture and distribution is peanuts -- literally. A gram of cocaine on the open market, without artificial price supports, would cost a few pennies.

Liquor (which we tried to Prohibit form 1919 to 1933) is reasonably priced -- despite about a 72% tax bite:
http://www.atr.org/special/taxbites/liquor.html

Cocaine, heroin, and pot would be similarly inexpensive, and the tax bite would solve budget shortfalls in the States as well as the Federal sphere. The money spent on boondoggles like the DEA and all the rest of the Narcotics Establishment could be spent on useful things -- like health care. Legalizing drugs would empty out prisons, which, in California spend $40,000+ per prisoner per year. Other states may get away with spending less.

"But what about crazies on drugs?" you ask. I reply: "We got plenty of crazies running around on alcohol." And what we do about them -- both -- is bag them for doing something stupid and dangerous, like Driving Under the Influence. If they commit a real crime -- holdup, assault & battery, etc., jug 'em for the real crime, not for being a pothead. To be consistent (and forswear hypocrisy) we would need to lock up alcoholics too -- and now doesn't that just strike a bit close to home, Bunky?

The experience of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic over the past 35 or so years has been that between 2 and 4% of users develop serious problems requiring medical or psychological intervention. The remaining 96 to 98% of the user population gets along just fine. Counseling at $100 a session, 52 weeks a year is $5200 -- 13% if $40k -- at $200 a session, it is still only about 1/4 of $40k.

I know very well that I am blowing into the wind -- the Narco Establishment (gangsters, cops, legislators, and in California, the Prison Guards' Union) are too well intrenched, and too well funded, to listen to the voice of reason and cost-effective programs.