Okay, so here me out, before leaving your reply I want to make a few points.
First of all, I'm not particularly a fan of drugs, and it is my belief that, though some drugs can be used every once in a while in general it would be better for people to not use drugs like for instance heroin or cocaine. This blog is not a statement, it's more a thought experiment.
Supply and Demand
Here we go! The war on drugs in the United States is something that interests me in particular. Watching real-life documentaries of the police force finding a stash of drugs with an officer proudly announcing:
"The work we do is very helpful for the community, you see these 4 kilo's of heroin behind me, they will now not end up on the streets, and therefore we have contributed to a safer city".
Yes, this sounds very good but let's look at the facts of a free market space which, in fact drug dealing an distribution is.
We know that for every kilo found, on average 7 kilo's slip through. So first of all, yes you may make a dent in the operation, but not a significant one. Now some economics 101. When the police take 4 kilo's of the market, the remains 28 kilo's that our out there become more scarce, and therefore price will rise. This means that the risk remains the same i.e. the police has already found the 4 kilo's so the other 28 is safe by now, and the price of the drugs have risen. Therefore more people are interested in smuggling, distributing, producing and dealing drugs. This leads to an increase of competition in the drugs market, which leads to more drug-related crime on the dealer and distributor level. Because prices surge and demand will remain the same (an addict is still an addict whether drugs are there or not), the drug users will have to pay more, and therefore get more money. Most of the addicts of heroin steal to get their money for drugs and therefore theft and petty crime increases as well. Because the police spends a lot of time on drug crime, other criminals have a lower risk of getting caught, which leads to a surge in crime. Therefore:
Whenever police make a drug bust:
- Valuable police resources have been wasted on finding drugs, leading to more crime.
- Price of drugs rises, leading to more crime by addicts
- Competition increases due to crime rise, leading to more drug-related violence
- Smuggling operations increase, leading to higher need of law-enforcement border patrol etc
- Due to remaining demand yet decreased supplies dealers are more likely to cut drugs, sometimes adding very dangerous chemicals leading to overdosis and drug-poisoning.
This is of course very useful and helpful, and a completely satisfactory way to spend police capacity and tax dollars.
Legality of other substances
A lot of people are not happy to consider decriminalising heroin and cocaine. Marihuana, maybe. This is an ideological and emotional standpoint which I can respect, however facts prove that it is not beneficial. After all, we have more deaths caused by alcohol, sugar and tobacco every year individually then by use of drugs.
| Cause of Death: | Drugs | Fat/Sugar related disaeses | Alcohol | Tobacco |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 72.000 | 715.318 | 88.000 | 480.000 |
As you can see above it makes total sense to focus on drugs, again keeping in mind that the police is so much as making a dent in the total supply of drugs, and even if they do, demand will stay the same. Because the other substances that are legal after all, are not deadly at all... go figure.
Effects of Decriminalisation
It is of course very hard to predict what will happen to the demand after decriminalisation, again keep in mind, I'm not suggesting Legalisation which is something different. There are a few things that we can say with certainty, and some that are harder to predict. Let's start with certainties:
- No more police resources would be needed for any victemless crime i.e. drug use, except when somebody poisoned drugs.
- Price of drugs drops like a mofo. It is not illegal to transport, so you don't need to smuggle. Transporting drugs over state borders is now all of a sudden not more expensive than transporting sugar, you can even send it via the post office.
- Competition is almost completely gone as supply increases immensely due to the fact that there is 0 risk to transport or produce.
- Smuggling operations cease to exist which frees up law enforcement to check on more important things at the border.
- Due to a similar demand* and the surge in supply prices for drugs will drop with about 85%.
- Due to price drops addicts don't have to steal as much which means less petty crime.
- Drops in petty crime free up even more law enforcement which means there is a higher risk of getting caught in other crimes with a lower demand for those crimes, which means other crime rates will drop as well.
Demand
You might think that when prices drop demand goes up, but we have to consider if this is the case with drugs. There are many people that can afford heroin but won't touch it. There are many people that can afford cocaine but don't go anywhere near it. There are many people that cannot afford it and touch it anyway. If the money that is being freed up by the release of pressure in law enforcement would be spent on education, healthcare and therapy the amount of addicts would most likely even decrease.
Conclusion
I'm not saying that decriminalising every drug will necessarily lead to a better society or will lead to less addicts. I do however believe it is stupendous to legalise cigarettes, alcohol, crazy amounts of sugar and fat, when these lead to a 10x higher death rate then drugs. Clearly the war on drugs, form an economical point of view is never ending, the demand will always stay the same if we don't spend money on education and healthcare, and the supply will never stop as with every police strike where drugs are impounded, prices will rise and smuggling and producing drugs will become more enticing, thus drawing more people in to take a risk. There are many more different things I can write about this topic, including taxation of drugs and government approved drugs, which by the way, let's be honest, the medicines being sold in the U.S. are pretty crazy as well. There are many examples like The Netherlands (where I live), where we see very positive results of decriminalising marihuana. Etc etc, but I didn't want to make this blog any longer.
What are your thoughts?
(remember replies always receive upvotes if they contribute value).
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