Is the legalization of drugs a good economic policy?
please respond with well founded arguments involving economic theory and empirical evidence.
I think you’ve got to clarify a bit here if you want a substantive debate.
What degree of legalization are we talking about here? Just marijuana? Coke and heroin too? LSD, speed, magic mushrooms? All that hillbilly shit kept behind the pharmacist’s counter? There’s a lot of ways to get high these days. Would you legalize it all? Or just decriminalize possession?
Also, what constitutes “good economic policy”? If the goal is to make the rich richer, there’s some protesting going on against that right now in a few spots around the globe. Do we really want to let those greedy corporations control every aspect of our lives, up to and including recreational drug use? Are we actually okay with Benson and Hedges plus the government telling us what a sack of weed is worth? Is the aim to enrich the government through tax revenues on drug sales? If politicians routinely fail to be elected for being perceived as soft on crime, how is this idea ever supposed to sell? What is to be done with the massive bureaucracy that currently fights the war on drugs? They can’t just be fired outright but they won’t have any work to do if drugs become legal. Is it good for international relations? Which is to say that if the US government starts buying cocaine directly from the Colombian Cartels, might the government of Colombia have something to say about it?
I do support the idea of legalization personally because I know no amount of laws or moralizing will ever stop people from wanting to get high. But to look at legalization as an easy solution to an economic crisis is a bit over the top.
How much of my final grade will this account for?
If we legalized marijuana in the same manner as tobacco and alcohol [age control, sell through dedicated locations that ID before selling, legally allowed to produce a certain amount per person or to get licensed for commercial production] we would cut off a fair amount of support for the cartels, reduce the amount spent on finding, arresting, prosecuting and warehousing [and ruining the futures of] a hell of a lot of people and that money could go towards serious drugs, or social projects, and the smaller resulting prison population would chap the ass of that asshole in Phoenix that adores being abusive to prisoners [and makes a lot of money in the process if what I hear is true]
Not to mention we could have the fiber for clothing and rope, use the byproducts to make cellulisic alcohol and biodiesel, the seeds are nutritions, and the chemicals in the plant can be used medically and recreationally.
No kidding. Exactly what I was thinking, well that and, ‘put down the bong kid’.
Two ounces worth?
this has nothing to do with grades.
please stop passing this question off like it is a simple highschool assignment drafted by a weed addict. If its simplicity seems to confound, it may be merely a reflection of the inadequacies of this forum. my mistake
to clarify:
I want to know if legalizing all drugs, with policies similar to those in Amsterdam, would have a positive economic effect in the USA?
please refrain from moralistic sentiment. Answer in an objective and precise manner, founded upon legitimate empirical evidence (statistics, and data)
Well, to be fair, most people who spell it “leagalization” lean toward one end of the debate, just sayin’ is all.
For that type of answer you can go to NORML, or Grasscity.com or any number of marijuana advocacy sites.
We could for one eliminate the cost of pursuing the war against weed - a majority of the people in jail for drugs are there for marijuana based issues. A majority of the DEA operations are against marijuana. A majority of the cartel activities in Mexico, while it also includes harder drugs, a major portion of their money comes from marijuana. If it was legal in the US to grow buy and sell weed within the law, there would be no need to pay the cartels to grow and send weed to the US and their profits would drop off. [A majority of weed users I know would prefer to have american grown good dependable quality weed instead of mexican brick weed.] As I posted above, there are alternative products in weed, fiber, seed, oil, cellulosic alcohol. Farmers could legally grow the low THC version for assorted products, farmers could grow the high THC version for the medical and recreational trade. Taxes could be collected on it. People could be hired to work in the farms and factories and they could not only spend money, but pay taxes on their purchases and income.
Positive for some, negative for others.
If dope ain’t a crime then there is a boatload of tax dollars that will not need to spent anymore. Here is a cite, but I do not know how reliable it is, if at all. But it says we have spent 43 Billion so far this year.
http://actionamerica.org/drugs/wodclock.shtml
I think we can find better ways to spend 43 billion.
Some people may think you are merely trying to get a paper written for you because: A) you are very new to the board, and, B) you are not bringing much to the debate itself. I have some doubt that you understand enough of the very basics of this subject to jump ahead into the economic policy aspect of it.*
For example, you mention legalization in Amsterdam. AFAIK, the situation with cannabis in the Netherlands is essentially a national policy–not one limited only to Amsterdam. More importantly, unless it has changed (and they do tinker with their drug policy a lot) drugs are not “legal” in the Netherlands, however, buying and using small amounts of cannabis are “tolerated” (de-criminalized).
*Of course, there’s no problem if someone doesn’t understand the basics of this… it just seems odd to me that you can’t (don’t) differentiate between legalization and de-criminalization–which, per your question, is a pretty important distinction–and yet you want to ask about more complex aspects of drug policy.
If drugs were legal then purity and quality would go up dramatically while price declined dramatically (unless massive taxes were added like with cigarettes). Pharmaceuticals like meth or heroin are not very expensive to manufacture as far as I know.
So from an economic standpoint I don’t see the appeal. The only appeal is that it may cut down crime to get money to buy the drugs.
But I once read that in nations like Britain they experimented with medical professionals giving a lower quality/purity heroin for drug addicts. The thought was that they’d just use the heroin rather than go out and steal to get money for drugs. But they just ended up selling the low purity stuff and buying higher quality street drugs with the money.
Legalization and decriminalization should be pursued as a civil rights issue and a harm reduction issue. But I don’t know what economic appeal there is to it. If you add too many taxes to the official drugs, people will just go back to buying street drugs if they are cheaper.
I agree that the price will go down but I have my doubts about purity\quality improving.
My reasoning is that decriminalization (which I am all for) will not erase stigma. Booze and cigarettes, which can be just as deadly, do not have the same…shame, for lack of a better word, attached to them. They are socially acceptable. I cannot see any reputable companies like Anheiser Bush or Phizer getting into the crystal meth market and not taking a huge PR hit. At least not without a good amount of time passing.
Would decriminization nessasarily mean regulation? Or would government have more of a hands-off, ‘this is scummy so we’ll leave you as we found you’ approach, leaving dope pretty much a street thing. Would the religious right, or the liberal elite for that matter, be OK with revenue from heroin and meth? How fast could they rationalize that, even after surrendering the War on Drugs?
Not all drugs are legal in the Netherlands, in fact most are illegal. As pointed out by I love me cannabis is de-criminalized with regards to selling and posession. That still leaves production in a grey area where there is no control or regulation. There is no political will to regulate the production of cannabis because that would be taking it too far in the eyes of many.
The whole policy is aimed towards the fact that the government can’t, to the best of its abillities, prevent the people from using cannabis. It’s not, I repeat, not about making a few bucks through taxes when it comes to allowing the sale and use of cannabis. It is not in the intrest of the general public and thus the government(like you know it) to stimulate the consumption of cannabis, or any other intoxicating substance for that matter.
Mrijuana is a harmless drug-it makes no sense to make the use and posession of it illegal. The so-called “hard” drugs are very dangerous, and should not be street legal. I can however, see a case for licensing committed addicts (Those over 55, or with extensive criminal records, or those who agree to waive healthcare for overdose conditions.)
Such self-declared addicts could be given license to purchse ,imited amonts of drugs for their own use-if they take too much, there is a “Do Not Recusitate” rule for them.