easier and less exposed to law enforcement. Economists call this the iron law of prohibition, and it shows up whenever drug potency is easily variable. During alcohol Prohibition in America, for example, low- potency drinks like beer and wine became extremely difficult to find, with the cost of beer increasing to approximately 700% of its pre-Prohibition price. Casual drinkers who would usually prefer less-intoxicating drinks were forced to switch to higher-potency spirits. Yet, when Prohibition ended, the vast majority of drinkers returned to beer and wine, demonstrating that the consumption pattern during Prohibition was determined more by supply than by demand. Similarly, prior to the first major federal drug law, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, low-potency opiates in the form of tinctures and soothing syrups were widely available in stores. There were many addicts before the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act – particularly older white women who relied on laudanum and other opium tinctures to get through the day – and that didn’t change after the Act went into effect in 1915. What changed was the opiates they could access, as the supply of low-potency drugs dried up and were replaced by higher potency morphine and heroin. In this way, drug prohibition helps create drug addicts. And by pushing users toward increasingly potent forms of drugs, prohibition quite literally kills people via accidental overdoses. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the ongoing opioid overdose crisis in the United States, which is really a heroin and fentanyl crisis. Fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times more
By pushing users toward increasingly potent forms of drugs, prohibition quite literally kills people via accidental overdoses. fentanyl’s spread is much more due to supply than demand. While some users like fentanyl’s quick-acting fix, most seem to prefer lighter opioids like heroin, but the black market doesn’t give them a choice. Users are also scared of fentanyl, which is so potent that a small amount that unknowingly taints a user’s regular heroin or cocaine supply can mean death. And while our current opioid crisis is associated with white people in middle America – for good reason – African Americans are beginning to die at an increasing rate. Initially, fentanyl infested the opioid supply of rural and suburban areas, with the fatal overdose rate for white Americans increasing 53.7% from 2005 to 2014, while the African American overdose rate only increased by 12.1%, according to the Washington Post . From 2014 to 2017, however, the fatal overdose rate for African Americans spiked by 94.1%, almost all due to fentanyl. Fentanyl’s introduction to the American drug supply demonstrates the iron law of prohibition in its most acute and lethal form. Thousands of doses of fentanyl can be mailed in a normal-sized envelope, and we don’t have the manpower or technology to stop it. powerful than heroin – has crept into our drug supply with deadly results, with nearly 30,000 dead from fentanyl overdoses in 2017 alone. But just as during alcohol Prohibition,
American Consequences 45
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