Collegiate Times

A response I am commonly given when I am promoting Students for Sensible Drug Policy on campus is “I don‘t do drugs. Why should I care about these issues?” While I understand how one might hold this misconception, the fact of the matter is that the war on drugs is universally relevant. The drug war leads to increased crime on our streets, extremely high law enforcement costs which are financed by tax dollars, and a perpetuation of racial and social inequality.

Therefore, it is ultimately society that ends up bearing the burden of the drug war.

Anybody who has ever taken an introductory economics course understands the law of supply and demand. In its most simplistic form, the rule states that when consumers demand a good or service, suppliers will come about to meet the needs of those consumers. As a good becomes profitable, more players will enter the market, which subsequently increases the market supply of the product while driving down
the price.

In a well-regulated market system, standards are put in place to protect consumer rights and to ensure fair economic competition. For example, when you buy a food product from the grocery store, you know exactly what ingredients have been put into said product. You can also be reasonably assured that the grocer will not sell a pack of cigarettes to your four-year-old daughter. Fair competition is ensured — in theory ­— by firms gaining an advantage over their competitors in price or quality. Anti-trust laws and the civil system exist to ensure that these advantages are gained equitably, although their effectiveness is questionable.

However, there are some markets that have no regulation whatsoever. Periodically throughout history, legal bans or prohibitions have been placed on the manufacture, sale, transportation and possession of consumer products that have been deemed harmful to the public good. The most notorious example of prohibition occurred in the United States in 1919 with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. The amendment made the manufacture, sale or transportation of liquor illegal in the United States.

The economic effects of the law were largely unanticipated. Since the demand for alcohol was so high, players entered the market despite the prohibition. However, these players were not firms that were subject to regulation: They were organized crime syndicates. Competition between these syndicates was not economic — it was violent. Furthermore, consumers were not safe, as bootleg alcohol often contained the poisonous methyl alcohol, as opposed to the ethyl alcohol found in liquors, which resulted in thousands of deaths. By the early 1930s, alcohol prohibition was deemed a failure and was repealed.

Anyone who cannot see the parallels between alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and drug prohibition in the present is simply blind. Prohibition of drugs, especially marijuana and cocaine, has led to the rise of Mexican drug cartels, illegal drug sales by gangs in the U.S. and the sponsorship of terrorist organizations. In 2009, the Justice Department declared Mexican drug cartels to be the single greatest organized crime threat to the U.S. Hillary Clinton stated that “the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico.” Aside from the thousands of Mexicans who have been killed as a result of Mexican drug violence, no fewer than 19 Americans have been killed as a result of it.

There is no consumer protection in the illegal drug market. Drugs are often diluted with other drugs — like marijuana laced with crack-cocaine — without the consumer knowing. Furthermore, there are not restrictions as to whom drug dealers can sell to. No one is stopping them from selling cocaine to a four-year-old, assuming she has the money for the product. In this sense, the illegal drug market is the epitome of an unregulated free-market. The UN estimates that the value of the global illegal drug market is approximately $321 billion annually.

How does our government choose to deal with the perpetuation of drugs in our society? Since the early 1970s, the main solution has been a large increase in law enforcement. In 1970, President Richard Nixon declared a national war on drugs. This declaration led to the subsequent creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973. Currently, approximately one-fourth of all of the people who are incarcerated in our prison system are there as a result of a drug offense. It costs more than $6 million per year to incarcerate drug offenders. In fact, the drug war costs taxpayers $40 billion dollars per year.

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A version of this article appeared in the Apr 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.