The Drug War Has Failed. End It Now.
While the Eighteenth Amendment, which was passed and subsequently repealed in the early 20th century, is often regarded as the first major prohibition in the United States, it certainly was not the last.
The War on Drugs, begun under President Richard Nixon, continues to rely on prohibition policies as a means of controlling the sale, manufacture, and consumption of certain drugs.
Supporters of drug prohibition claim that it reduces drug-related crime, decreases drug-related disease and overdose, and is an effective means of disrupting and dismantling organized criminal enterprises. But the data shows that continued prohibition is both ineffective and counterproductive at achieving these goals.
In their new study, Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs, Christopher J. Coyne, a professor of economics at George Mason University, and Abigail R. Hall, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, explore the economics of prohibition.
Using tools and insights from economics to analyze data on overdose deaths, crime, and cartels, Coyne and Hall conclude that the War on Drugs is not only ineffective, but counterproductive at achieving the goals of policymakers, both domestically and abroad.
Economically, while prohibition does limit the supply of drugs and raise prices, therefore reducing the demand for drugs, these mandates push the market for drugs into underground black markets and generate unintended consequences that work against prohibition’s goals. Due to the lack of quality control, this market results in tainted, highly potent drugs, increasing the chances of poisoning and overdose.
Domestically, overdose rates and the spread of drug-related diseases have been climbing since prohibition began. Between 2000 and 2014, more people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses than from car crashes. In addition, the rate of opioid overdoses has more than tripled since 2000, with 61 percent of all overdose deaths in 2014 caused by the more potent drugs. The restrictions prohibition places on buying legal needles and syringes leads users to share used needles, increasing the occurrence of HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B.
Prohibitionists claim the drug war reduces drug-related violence, but they ignore the fact that, while drug trafficking isn’t inherently violent, drug prohibition is. It’s true that the black market for drugs relies on cash transactions and violence, drug market violence is a function of the market’s illegality, not of the drugs themselves.
Without a legal system in place to resolve disputes, individuals who are comfortable using violence monopolize illegal drug markets through the use of cartels. The same was true of alcohol distributors under prohibition. In 1929, if two alcohol distributors had a dispute, they settled it on the street corner with Tommy guns and Molotov cocktails. In 2017 if two alcohol distributors have a dispute, they settle it in court.
While many have examined the effect of prohibition on domestic outcomes, few have asked how these programs impact foreign policy outcomes.
Internationally, prohibition not only fails in its own right, but also actively undermines the goals of the Global War on Terror. America’s prohibitionist policies have failed overseas, with the U.S. government spending millions of taxpayer dollars to combat the import of narcotics. For example, the U.S. imposed its prohibitionist drug policies in Afghanistan in 2004, yet the opium economy is more concentrated in the hands of the Taliban than ever before as a result of cartelization. In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, prohibition led to widespread government corruption, with officials at the highest levels circumventing the law in order to keep up profits from drug production and trafficking.
Policymakers need to consider decriminalization or legalization of drugs in order to achieve the goals the War on Drugs intended to meet. In 2001, Portugal decriminalized possession of all illicit drugs but retained criminal sanctions for activities such as trafficking. As a result, Portugal’s rate of drug use remains below both the European and American average. New HIV and AIDS infections have fallen significantly from 1,575 and 626, respectively, in 2000 to 78 and 74 in 2013.
The U.S. should learn from Portugal’s liberal drug policies in order to reduce drug use, drug-related crime, disease, death and violence.
Truly effective reform will not only require changes at the state level, but ultimately necessitate critical shifts in U.S. federal policies, both domestically and internationally.
As a candidate, Donald Trump held a relatively moderate line on drug prohibition, often arguing that issues like marijuana legalization should be left to state governments. Unfortunately, as President, his approach has taken a turn for the worse.
The Trump Administration has yet to announce much in the way of concrete policy changes, but the personnel choices and the drug warrior rhetoric coming from the new administration are causes for concern looking forward.
Jeff Sessions, our new Attorney General is a long-time champion of the federal drug war. Since taking over the Justice Department, Sessions has continued to make statements that hint at a return to a much harsher federal approach to drug prohibition.
President Trump is also expected to name Congressman Tom Marino (R-PA) to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy, an office colloquially known as the federal government’s “Drug Czar.” While the Drug Czar has a limited impact on policy, Marino’s expected nomination is another red flag.
Rep. Marino has a long history of taking a hard line on the drug war. He voted against the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which allows state medical marijuana industries to function without the constant fear of federal prosecution, and has also voted to prevent Veterans’ Affairs doctors at facilities in states with legal marijuana from prescribing medical marijuana to their patients.
Four decades of a hardline approach to drug policy in America have failed.
Forty-four states and the District of Columbia allow some form of legal cannabis consumption, including eight states (and D.C.) which have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The dire predictions of drug warriors in those states have not come true.
It’s time to ditch the failed prohibitionist policies of the drug war. Unfortunately, President Trump appears to be moving in the wrong direction.
