A LIBERTARIAN LOOKSAT LEGALIZATION
What if there was a drug that caused unpredictable mood swings, reckless and irresponsible behavior, a tendency towards violence, and severe – often fatal – effects on physical and mental health? Oh... I’ve got a six-pack of it in the fridge. And I’m fully intending to pop open a can or two as soon as I get done writing. Under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. banned the manufacture, importation, sale, and transport of this perilous drug from 1920 to 1933 – with various unintended adverse consequences. (Al Capone.) Under other federal laws, the U.S. banned opiates in 1914, marijuana in 1937, and cocaine in 1970 – with various unintended adverse consequences. (Disco.) Not to mention mass incarceration, millions of Americans with felony records because they were looking to have or provide a little fun, hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from overdoses of dangerous drugs that contained qualities or quantities of drugs far more dangerous than drug consumers anticipated, wholesale murder by foreign drug cartels, retail murder by domestic drug gangs, exploding meth labs in trailer parks, and untold, wasted tax dollars spent on political, governmental, and legal involvements in all of the above. Why isn’t the libertarian side of me totally convincing the insides of me? Why, in my gut, do I worry about drug legalization?
The libertarian side of me is convinced that people should have the right to use whatever drugs they want and the responsibility to take the consequences of using those drugs. Why isn’t the libertarian side of me totally convincing the insides of me? Why, in my gut, do I worry about drug legalization?
A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT What would happen if we totally and completely legalized drugs?
We’d save a lot of money. The Cato Institute and various other sources across the political spectrum – from Fox News to the Center for American Progress – estimate that in the 48 years since the “War on Drugs” was declared, the U.S. government has spent at least $1 enforcement is about $51 billion annually. By comparison, current federal spending on highway funding is about $45 billion annually. So if you hit a pothole and your bong water spills, blame it on drug criminalization. We would save a lot of money. But we would also have a lot more people on drugs. It’s simple economics (simple, at least, in the context of a “thought experiment”): Lower price means greater demand. A legal and competitive marketplace would depress the monetary price of drugs. trillion fighting it. (FYI, we lost.) Current federal spending on drug
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March 2019
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