My colleague at OTB, Steven Taylor, has a post there, quoting some British sources, on the virtues of drug legalization that has garnered a significant amount of comment. Frankly, it has me confused. I confess that I don’t understand what’s being discussed. Essentially, I have three questions.
First, what is meant by “legalize drugs”? Do they mean legalize pot? I think there’s a pretty good argument in favor of that, a somewhat weaker argument in favor of making all Schedule 3 drugs available over the counter, and an extremely poor argument in favor of making all drugs available over the counter. What are the proponents arguing for?
Second, what is meant by “prohibition didn’t work”? The mythology of Prohibition is that alcohol use and abuse increased as a consequence of Prohibition. The reality is that Prohibition reduced alcohol use and abuse in the United States dramatically and at the time of repeal alcohol use was 70% of what it had been before Prohibition. This stuff is all well-documented. Check Last Call, for example. Do they mean that it wasn’t cost-effective? I think there’s a better argument to be made there.
Here are my views. I think that we should legalize marijuana and leave other drug prohibitions as they are. I also think that proponents of legalization are overstating the benefits of legalization and understating its costs. Organized crime won’t cease to exist if we legalize drugs. We’ll see exactly what happened after the repeal of Prohibition: some of those involved in illegal activities will go legit, cf. Seagram’s, and the rest will transfer their attention to different contraband and other illegal activities. Drugs that remain illegal, prostitution, human trafficking, weapons, counterfeit currency, counterfeit merchandise. The list is substantial.
What is actually being proposed?
Those are pretty close to my thoughts, which is why I rarely read pro-legalization pieces. I can support decriminalization of pot, mainly on cost-benefit analysis, but don’t think it’s going to reduce organized crime one bit. I don’t know that it would reduce the necessary size of the police force one bit. It might reduce some incarcerations, but some of that has more to do with minimum sentencing laws for multiple offenders that I don’t like regardless of drug policy.
Also, I generally question whether there is political support if a California referendum on medical marijuana can’t pass.
You will probably see an overall decline in the size of the organized crime sector, though, since Marijuana is the single largest contraband drug smuggled by groups like the Mexican gangs. They could switch over to other drugs, but other drugs don’t have as much of a market as Marijuana.
That’s always been the best argument for me. Sure, we got a 30% reduction in alcohol usage during Prohibition, but at the cost of spawning gigantic crime businesses to supply it while making millions of Americans criminals.
In any case, I support the full legalization of marijuana use and production. Mere decriminalization of usage will get you a “Gray Market” situation like in Amsterdam, where you still have strong criminal elements involved because it’s illegal to produce the marijuana that is then sold more or less legally in the cafes.
That’s not what happened after Prohibition was repealed. Why will this time be different?
BTW, I think that the notion that Prohibition increased the scale of organized crime is pretty weak as well. Organized crime got big for the same reasons that other businesses did: technology and a large labor pool.
Brett, I’m reluctant to put canabis into the hands of Marlboro and big business. I would much prefer a regulatory scheme that promoted home/small-business production. That may run against the tax arguments. It may also be anti-environmental if it runs up electric usage.
Dave:
How is it that the laws of economics are repealed when we talk about organized crime? When a company loses its market it loses income and shrinks. Unless it can replace those lost sales. Buggy whip makers had to switch to making something else when the buggy whip market evaporated. Most buggy-involved companies probably just went under.
So with what will organized crime replace marijuana? There’s no other drug that even comes close, and those other drugs are already available so it’s hard to see how the billions lost in marijuana sales can be made up in meth or coke.
When we legalized gambling via lotteries did organized crime lose the numbers racket? Pretty much. When we re-legalized alcohol did the bootlegging business dry up? Yep. If we legalize marijuana will organized crime lose the weed racket? Obviously.
And where does organized crime go to make up for that lost income? Gambling? No. Other drugs? Not on the same scale. Kidnapping? Meh. It’s hard to get into the billions off kidnapping for ransom.
You generally prefer specifics, Dave, so can you suggest exactly where organized crime goes to get back the tens of billions they’d lose from legalization?
Specifics on a hypothetical are pretty difficult. The best gauge is the past. When Prohibition was repealed some criminals went legit, others went into gambling or prostitution. That’s what built Las Vegas.
Uh, no. When a company loses its market it diversifies if it can.
Do we have less organized crime now than we did during Prohibition? Have state lotteries reduced the level of organized crime? Not so you’d notice–they’re doing other things.
My guess is that we’d see more cocaine, meth, heroin, human trafficking, counterfeit currency, counterfeit merchandise, and various kinds of computer crime.
Once again, I’m in favor of legalizing pot as the low-hanging fruit. I just think that we should have realistic expectations of its limitations as a method of reducing organized crime. It will certainly reduce convictions for simple possession, worthwhile of itself.
Update
Has any study found that legalization of pot will reduce organized crime? The only recent study that I know of, RAND’s, didn’t
Drugs can create demand. The lack of economic opportunity facilitates the supply of labor that drug-trafficking needs.
The oddest thing in the OTB piece was the assertion that if Riteway is selling drugs, the inner-city kid will think twice about dropping out of school. Why? So he/she can work at the cash-register?
I was listening to archival tapes of a leading African-American in my city from the 60s, explain what he thinks has gone wrong. He believed that the civil rights movement gave opportunities to the “cream of the crop,” and they moved away (unlike other immigrant groups). The kids left behind looked around and saw no economic opportunities, except in crime. If this is correct, putting marijuana in the drug store, doesn’t change the basic dynamic. You would have to eliminate the perceived value differential between criminal and non-criminal enterprises.
They diversify if they can. If there’s a place to diversify. But in this case it’s a bit like Ford losing the car business and diversifying into . . . what, exactly?
No, the opportunities in other drugs simply are not as great. Those are, relatively speaking, niche products. To use the Ford example again, it’s as if they can’t make cars anymore but can still sell windshield wipers and floormats. The number of people who will shoot heroin is never going to be as large as the number who smoke weed — the negatives are too large and well-known.
If organized crime is so sanguine about diversification why exactly are they busy murdering each other and any Mexican official who sticks his head up? They are evidently quite devoted to staying in the weed business.
Organized crime profits from decisions made by lawmakers. We decide to outlaw booze — they sell booze. We outlaw pot — they sell pot. Outlaw gambling — they run gambling. But we have successfully taken gambling away from them, and booze. Now they have weed, harder drugs, hookers, various types of theft.
There is no drug to replace lost weed revenue. We have all the hookers we need — and they are less and less under the thumb of OC thanks to the invention of the web page. Which leaves theft. But to suggest that they can replace their tens of billions with theft is to imagine that they are now holding back on computer theft in order to focus on selling pot. Is there evidence to support this? Put another way: the weed business involves a lot of guns and shooting. Would you be holding off on nice, safe, identity theft in favor of the weed wars?
You would have to eliminate the perceived value differential between criminal and non-criminal enterprises.
Which is what you do if you deprive them of lucrative product to sell illegally.
Those same kids would have been numbers runners before we essentially legalized gambling. Or they would have driven trucks for bootleggers. Or maybe they’d step up to pimphood — but pimps are losing ground, too, as prostitution goes higher tech.
Less product to sell = fewer salesemen. When we take weed away what will they sell? Not numbers, not girls, not booze, not weed. Then what? Harder drugs — but heroin and meth have never, will never, have the kind of market penetration enjoyed by booze and weed.
The public’s tastes have typically run to the mildly dangerous, not to the suicidal. When people get the facts they start giving up cigarettes. They move from whiskey to light beers. They invest in expensive vaporizers so the pot smoke won’t hurt their lungs. We’ve seen waves of hard drugs that faded as the damage became apparent.
Legalize, educate and tax.
I guess that’s why, according to the DEA organized crime is dealing more heavily in cocaine than in any other drug, including marijuana.
Dave, to your original question. I think what was proposed in the linked OTB piece was (1) full legalization (including heroin), and (2) distribution by prescription through doctors and pharmacies w/ presumably increased access to substance abuse treatment.
That’s not the model that appears to be desired by any of the commentors. I think most want marijuana to be sold like beer or cigarettes.
I am puzzled by what role that places the prescription-filler and drug manufacturer in light of the Food & Drug Act? Is the manufacturer’s job to make the purist, concentrated product, or would the government impose potency restrictions? What is a healthy dose of heroin? And what medicinal and ethical considerations should a doctor or pharmacist have in writing script for a recreational drug? Is the purpose of the prescription to monitor usage?
Legalize everything other than, maybe, meth. Will organized crime go into gambling or prostitution? They are probably there already. You will certainly lose a lot of the lower level kids in the city who turn to drug selling since it is so easy and glamorous. Since most of the violent crime is in the distribution or acquiring the drugs, different from alcohol, you will greatly reduce violent crime.
Steve
I’m agreeing with Dave. There will be no reduction in criminal enterprise. Why do criminals become criminals? Very few do so through the exercise of a rational weighing of their career options. We’ll see more extortion, kidnapping, protection rackets, prostitution, sex trafficking, human smuggling, arms dealing, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see criminal fiefdoms take over parts of weak states. The small level drug dealers will be the foot soldiers of these new initiatives.
@Tango- You posit a fixed number /percentage of criminals through all time.
Steve
I’ve don’t know why anyone would mean, when saying “Prohibition didn’t work,” that it didn’t reduce consumption. After all, the core issue is that is creates scarcity (and the attendant reduction is consumption) without addressing demand. Margins naturally move up (dramatically) and the void is filled by criminals with all of the ugly side effects we know so well. What they mean is that it had – as has the “War on Drugs” – awful, and avoidable, side effects that far outweigh the benefits.
What I would want is to completely legalize the two volume items: puff and snort.
I simply do not understand the argument that says that if we legalize thosed items the criminal enterprise would simply migrate to other activities. That position predisposes demand for those other activities; demand I do not think exists. (Intuitively I can only imagine that prostitution would have the necessary demand, and the fix already seems to be in there.) Thought experiment: speeding is illegal; has the demand for running red lights increased? If we criminalized drinking milk, would the demand for eating hamburgers increase? As MR pointed out: if we outlawed steel mills, would they diversify and reopen as pancake houses?
Or, in the direct converse argument: if we legalized prostitution, would the demand, and criminal activity in illegal drugs increase. I think not. In fact, given the drug financing motivations of some street girls, I think the better argument is that there would be fewer hookers, although the remaining might be able to raise prices.
Lastly, I have a deeper concern. The communities that are disproportionately affected by drug related crime are inhabited by poor minorities. I fear that its just too convenient to look at this as a distant problem, while musing about how criminals will switch to different activities. It would be fascinating to conduct a 3 year test and see who is correct. OK, I’ll stop dreaming now………
I was about to add-on, but steve beat me to it. Said another way, it assumes some sort of equilibrium level of criminal profit that would have to be re-established in the absemce of drug profit.
I simply do not understand the argument that says that if we legalize thosed items the criminal enterprise would simply migrate to other activities. That position predisposes demand for those other activities; demand I do not think exists.
I think that you’re not understanding the argument because you’re trying to jam the alternatives into the mental model you’re using. I get this impression because you base your counter-argument on consumer demand for another activity, which is how the drug market is structured.
Kidnapping doesn’t involve consumer demand, not does a protection racket, nor does taking over a Mexican town and becoming the de facto government. Here’s what happened in the UK:
As to Steve’s comment, first the anecdotal. I know a bad seed. This guy is pretty sharp and he could make a good living for himself in the legitimate world but he’ll spend twice as much energy to make half as much money by pulling a scam. The ill-gotten dollar is sweeter than the honestly earned sawbuck. Now for the data:
That sure doesn’t look like rational decision making to me. If foot soldiers can be enticed into low paying positions in the drug trade which come with high risk of arrest, incarceration, and death then I’m pretty sure that whatever appeal the drug trade holds for them can also be found in criminal activities associated with kidnapping, human smuggling, extortion, and a range of other illicit activities.
Close tags
There’s some evidence that the repeal of Prohibition helped greatly reduce homicide rates, that had shot up in 1920-33.
Dave:
I guess that’s why, according to the DEA organized crime is dealing more heavily in cocaine than in any other drug, including marijuana.
I think those numbers may be a bit aged at this point, and frankly a little suspect coming from an agency whose existence relies on ramping up fear.
Also don’t forget that a major part of the marijuana crop is domestic — increasingly so — and therefore doesn’t require organized crime’s smuggling prowess. Domestic production could ramp up in a heartbeat to eliminate the last of the demand for pot from Mexico etc…
Money would stop flowing to Mexican gangs. And people who wanted to buy weed would be buying it from their local liquor store or ABC store where the “dealer” would not be trying to also sell addictive drugs. Right now in many cases you’re buying pot from the same guy who would happily sell you coke or meth. That’s one of the reasons pot is a “gateway” drug. Decouple pot from other drugs, sell it through retailers who have a powerful incentive not to lose their licenses, and you push organized (and disorganized) crime out of the business just as happened with alcohol.
Steve:
No, not Tango. He’s positing a fixed number of black/brown people. In his mind there’s no difference.
Wait a while, he’ll get to it.
In a smuggling situation people will favor higher density contraband. Street value per cubic foot.
For that reason I’d think the marijuana prohibition already tipped the supply toward denser (and easier to cut) cocaine.
(From my non-scientific perspective, legal pot might keep otherwise violent people on the couch, in front of the tv. The original fear that pot would make mexican farm workers act up against white people was pretty misguided.)
Legal pot will definitely help the snack cake business.
Buy Hostess and Frito Lay.
No, but it does depend on profit margins relative to the risks involved. Presumably criminals are no currently involved in the drug trade because the profit/risk relationship beats kidnapping or other endeavors. If the drug trade is shut down your contention is that everyone will simply switch to some other criminal activity whereas everyone else is saying, yeah maybe to some extent, but probably not 1:1. Your evidence is that after prohibition ended organized crime did not cease to exist which is not really evidence for your position at all since organized crime had several other illicit fields from which to generate income….of course prohibition was not going to get rid of organized crime.
What we have here is an empirical question: will there be a shift towards other illicit activities that will offset the decline in the drug trade? Neither side can say for sure without actually studying the issue.
The RAND study doesn’t even really do it, if its the study on California and marijuana legalization. That study looked at the drug trade between Mexico and the U.S. The conclusion was that the drug trade between Mexico and the U.S. would decline if marijuana grown in California was illegally shipped to other states. That is California marijuana displaced Mexican marijuana. That other states would still demand marijuana would mean overall little decline in the illicit transportation of marijuana. However, the over all drug trade revenues would not be significantly impacted without displacement since marijuana is but one component of a several.
In reading the news release (don’t want to buy the full study) it sounds like legalization in both Mexico and the U.S. would reduce the illegal trade in drugs and quite possibly the violence in Mexico, but that was outside the scope of the study.
link
Reynolds, just why do you think pot is more important than coke to the smugglers? Pot smuggling was damned near a mom-and-pop business in FLorida back in the day, and the money wasn’t all that big. When the coke boom started in the 1970s, though, everything changed. Billions and billions of dollars skimmed off the top of the coke trade built Miami and South Florida into the over-populated monsters they are today. That was just the skim! Cocaine is at least as responsible for the over-population of Florida as Disney is – where do you think all the money for real estate development came from? It wasn’t from the marijuana trade….
(The worst culprit in Florida’s growth has been air conditioning. Ban that and the state wouldshrink back to a small sleepy Southern state.)