Legalize Drugs?
In the state of Indiana, a person convicted of armed robbery will serve about six years in prison; someone convicted of rape will serve about eight; and a convicted murderer can expect to spend twenty-four years behind bars (Schlosser 13). According to Schlosser, these figures are actually higher than the national average: eleven years and four months in prison is the typical punishment for an American found guilty of murder (13). The prison term given by Indiana judges tend to be long. Those facts are worth keeping in mind when considering the case of Mark Young (Schlosser 13). At the age of thirty-eight, Young was arrested at his Indianapolis home for brokering the sale of seven hundred pounds of marijuana grown on a farm in nearby Morgan County (Schlosser 13). Young was tried and convicted under federal law. He had never before been charged with drug trafficking. He had no history of violent crime. Young’s role in the illegal transaction had been that of middleman – he never distributed the drugs; he simply introduced two people hoping to sell a large amount of marijuana to three people wishing to buy it. All this occurred a year and a half before his arrest. No confiscated marijuana, money, or physical evidence of any kind linked Young to the crime. He was convicted solely on the testimony of co-conspirators who were now cooperating with the government. On February 8, 1992, Mark Young was sentenced by Judge Sarah Evans Barker to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (Schlosser 13).
According to the Federal Register, the fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates is $24,440 (31343). And according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than two million men and women are now behind bars in the United States (Prison). The country that holds itself out as the "land of freedom" incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country. The human costs — wasted lives, wrecked families, troubled children — are incalculable, as are the adverse social, economic and political consequences of weakened communities, diminished opportunities for economic mobility, and extensive disenfranchisement. Contrary to popular perception, violent crime is not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States since 1980. In fact, violent crime rates have been relatively constant or declining over the past two decades. The exploding prison population has been propelled by public policy changes that have increased the use of prison sentences as well as the length of time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. Although these policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, they have instead yielded high rates of confinement of nonviolent offenders. Nearly three quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes (Punishment). Only 49 percent of sentenced state inmates are held for violent offenses (Prisoners). Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges (Drugs).
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government with the assistance of participating countries, intended to reduce the illegal drug trade - to curb supply and diminish demand for certain psychoactive substances deemed "harmful or undesirable" by the government. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of targeted substances. On the forefront of this war is the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a component of the Executive Office of the President, was established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.
“The principal purpose of ONDCP is to establish policies, priorities, and objectives for the Nation's drug control program. The goals of the program are to reduce illicit drug use, manufacturing, and trafficking, drug-related crime and violence, and drug-related health consequences. To achieve these goals, the Director of ONDCP is charged with producing the National Drug Control Strategy. The Strategy directs the Nation's anti-drug efforts and establishes a program, a budget, and guidelines for cooperation among Federal, State, and local entities. (About, par. 2)”
Through its Office of National Drug Control Policy, the federal government spends $17 billion per year fighting drugs. That's roughly the same amount it spends on the Food Stamp program, which feeds poor Americans, and on our country's entire General Sciences, Space, and Technology budget (US CA). However, the actual financial cost of the war on drugs is much higher, with many drug-reform advocacy groups quoting the cost at $50 billion, which is equal to the combined budgets for all of our country's agriculture, energy, and veteran's programs. And still, a close examination shows that the total annual costs of the drug war probably exceed $50 billion. State and local governments contributed $15.9 billion to the fight against drugs in 1991, the last year for which the federal government tallied that figure. At that time federal spending on drug eradication was half what it is today (US CA). Of the $17 billion the federal government directly spends each year to control drug use, 61 percent goes for criminal justice and interdiction, while 30 percent goes for treatment and prevention programs (US CA).
The California Department of Corrections has an annual budget of $3.9 billion to deal with 161,000 inmates, 46,655 of whom are being incarcerated for drug offenses at a cost of about $1.1 billion each year (Budget). Nationwide, federal government figures show there are more than 1.7 million people in prisons and jails, 22 to 33 percent of those for drug offenses. At an average annual cost of about $20,000 per inmate, that adds nearly $7.8 billion to the drug war price tag (US CA).
In addition to all these costs, there are the soft costs of the drug war, which may be impossible to calculate. The cost of providing welfare and social services to families once dependant on drug profits, the large sums of money paid to foreign governments to join the war on drugs at our government’s insistence, the reduction of police and court officers whose workload is burdened by current drug laws.
Effects of the War
Drug use has increased in all categories since prohibition except that opium use is at a fraction of its peak level, although this is not an effect of the War on Drugs (In-School). Opium itself is not used as much because opium can be refined into more effective opiates such as heroin. By 1937, the use of marijuana, once an activity seemingly limited to jazz musicians, has become one undertaken by up to 50% of the youth of the United States (In-School). The big growth in use of marijuana happened however in the 1960s, well before the start of the war on drugs in 1971. President Richard Nixon stated that the increased drug use and drug related crime in the decade before 1971 was the cause for the war on drugs. Between 1972 and 1988 the use of cocaine increased more than fivefold (Controlling). The usage patterns of the current two most prevalent drugs, amphetamines and ecstasy, have shown similar gains (In-School).
In 1996, 56% of California voters voted for Proposition 215, legalizing the growing and use of marijuana for medical purposes. This created significant legal and policy tensions between the federal and state governments. Courts have since decided that state laws in conflict with a federal law about cannabis are not valid. Cannabis is restricted by federal law. Regardless of public opinion, marijuana could be the single most targeted drug in the drug war. It constitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990 and 2002, out of the overall drug arrests, 82% of the increase was for marijuana. In this same time period, New York experienced an increase of 2,640% for marijuana possession arrests (What Americans). As of 2006, marijuana has become the United States of America's biggest cash crop in terms of revenues (Marijuana).
Legalize and Tax?
Proponents of legalization suggest that their policy will save society money for several reasons. First, we will not have to pay police to enforce the present criminal-justice approach to drug usage. Second, we will be able to tax legal drugs, thereby raising revenue.
It should be stated initially that most people misconceive the amount of resources expended under the status quo for drug control. The FY 1994 federal budget allocates $7.51 billion for drug control (supply reduction) which includes criminal justice, interdiction, international programs and intelligence (National). State and local governments spend even more, $12.6 billion a year (National). Granted, this is a lot of money, but we should put these numbers in perspective. Americans spend about four billion dollars each summer for air conditioning. The citizens of Washington State spend $1.4 billion each year on legal gambling alone (Economics, par. 2). The national debt numbers in the trillions of dollars. One Stealth Bomber runs half a billion dollars. Indeed, only 1.4% of total government spending goes for law enforcement of all types, and an additional 1.0% for prosecution and prisons (Economics, par. 2). Out of this small percentage, 12% of spending for law enforcement was allocated to drug control activities, and about 25% of correctional (prison) spending was drug related (Economics, par. 2). Only 1.5% of total state and local government spending is attributed to drug control activities (Economics, par. 2). Thus, when taken in context, it is apparent that the costs of criminalized drugs nowhere approaches the financial obligations of government programs such as national defense, Social Security, or Medicare.
More important, if we legalized drugs on the assumption that by taxing them we could raise large amounts of revenue, we would be sadly mistaken. First, any such taxation scheme would perpetuate a criminal black market. Consequently, we would still have to spend money funding police, courts and the like to fight this problem. Second, if alcohol is any indication, we simply would not make that much money by taxing drugs. The total revenue collected from alcohol taxes at the federal, state, and local levels amounts to about $13.1 billion a year, a paltry sum compared to the social costs associated with alcohol consumption - something in the neighborhood of $100 billion (Economics, par. 3). Third, how would we structure a tax scheme for drugs? If we wanted to correlate higher taxes with higher risk behavior, logically we would tax the fifth joint more than the first (inasmuch as the fifth joint probably is more damaging to one's health). Further, it would cost money to create the governmental bureaucracy that would handle this taxation policy.
Thus, we do not spend that much on the drug war in comparison to other governmental programs, and taxation of legalized drugs would not result in that much revenue. But by far the most compelling economic argument against the legalization of drugs is the social costs associated with such a policy.
First, treating drug addicts is enormously expensive. Take crack babies as an example. In 1988, it cost $2.5 billion for the intensive care needed to keep the babies alive after birth (Economics, par. 5). But that was just the beginning of the expenses. It is estimated that it will cost $15 billion to prepare these children for kindergarten, and will then cost between $6 billion and $12 billion for every year of special learning programs (Economics, par. 5). Even assuming the low-ball figure, the social costs of educating all of the crack babies born in 1988 - not all crack babies, mind you, just those born that year - will run approximately $90 billion by the time they graduate from high school. Now to the extent that legalization will increase the drug addiction rates enormously, legalization seems like a very expensive policy indeed. And as for footing the bill: either common citizens will through taxes for government aid programs, or through increased insurance premiums (Economics, par. 5).
But treatment costs are just the first way in which drug addiction drains society. Already, drug addicts cost the country roughly $33 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and job-related accidents, according to a study conducted in 1987 by the Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (Economics, pars. 6-7). If legalized, addiction rates would increase and the cost would rise to between $140 billion and $210 billion a year (Economics, par. 6). And as for the loss of productivity and accidents, consumers will end up paying in the final costs of the produced goods.
Finally we must consider human lives in the economic calculus. As drug abuse causes more job related accidents, more people will be hurt or killed. Take, for example, the Conrail/Amtrak disaster of January 4, 1987. Because an engineer and a brakeman were high on marijuana, their train collided with another, killing sixteen people and injuring 175 (Economics, par. 9).
We spend approximately $20 billion a year on drug control activities. If drugs were legalized, we would see an increase in addiction rates. Consequently we would have more crack babies (the kind that already will cost the system $90 billion), decreased productivity (at a cost of between $140 billion and $210 billion), more job-related accidents, and more dead people. And given the potential black market effect, it is unlikely that we could raise even several billion dollars in tax revenue. From a purely economic standpoint, legalization is not cost effective.
Works Cited
“About.” Office of National Drug Control Policy. 31 May 2008
.
“Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration.” Federal Register 72 (6 June
2007): 31343.
“Budget Overview.” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 24 May
2008.
“Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs.” Rand Corporation. 24 May
2008.
“Drugs and Victims of Crime.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.
21 April 2008. 24 May 2008.
“The Economics of Drug Legalization.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. 24 May 2008
.
“In-School Surveys.” Monitoring the Future. 24 May 2008
.
“Marijuana Production in the United States.” DrugScience.org. 24 May 2008
.
“National Drug Control Strategy: Reclaiming Our Communities from Drugs and
Violence.” Office of National Drug Control Policy. 24 May 2008.
“Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of
Justice Statistics. 6 April 2003. 20 May 2008.
“Prisoners 2001.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. 30 July 2002.
20 May 2008.
“Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs.” Human Rights
Watch. May 2000. 22 May 2008
Schlosser, Eric. Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black
Market. Boston: Houghton, 2003.
“US CA: What Does The Drug War Cost?.” Media Awareness Project. 24 June 1999.
24 May 2008.
“What Americans Need to Know about Marijuana.” Office of National Drug Control
Policy. 24 May 2008.
According to the Federal Register, the fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates is $24,440 (31343). And according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than two million men and women are now behind bars in the United States (Prison). The country that holds itself out as the "land of freedom" incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country. The human costs — wasted lives, wrecked families, troubled children — are incalculable, as are the adverse social, economic and political consequences of weakened communities, diminished opportunities for economic mobility, and extensive disenfranchisement. Contrary to popular perception, violent crime is not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States since 1980. In fact, violent crime rates have been relatively constant or declining over the past two decades. The exploding prison population has been propelled by public policy changes that have increased the use of prison sentences as well as the length of time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. Although these policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, they have instead yielded high rates of confinement of nonviolent offenders. Nearly three quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes (Punishment). Only 49 percent of sentenced state inmates are held for violent offenses (Prisoners). Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges (Drugs).
The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government with the assistance of participating countries, intended to reduce the illegal drug trade - to curb supply and diminish demand for certain psychoactive substances deemed "harmful or undesirable" by the government. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of targeted substances. On the forefront of this war is the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a component of the Executive Office of the President, was established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988.
“The principal purpose of ONDCP is to establish policies, priorities, and objectives for the Nation's drug control program. The goals of the program are to reduce illicit drug use, manufacturing, and trafficking, drug-related crime and violence, and drug-related health consequences. To achieve these goals, the Director of ONDCP is charged with producing the National Drug Control Strategy. The Strategy directs the Nation's anti-drug efforts and establishes a program, a budget, and guidelines for cooperation among Federal, State, and local entities. (About, par. 2)”
Through its Office of National Drug Control Policy, the federal government spends $17 billion per year fighting drugs. That's roughly the same amount it spends on the Food Stamp program, which feeds poor Americans, and on our country's entire General Sciences, Space, and Technology budget (US CA). However, the actual financial cost of the war on drugs is much higher, with many drug-reform advocacy groups quoting the cost at $50 billion, which is equal to the combined budgets for all of our country's agriculture, energy, and veteran's programs. And still, a close examination shows that the total annual costs of the drug war probably exceed $50 billion. State and local governments contributed $15.9 billion to the fight against drugs in 1991, the last year for which the federal government tallied that figure. At that time federal spending on drug eradication was half what it is today (US CA). Of the $17 billion the federal government directly spends each year to control drug use, 61 percent goes for criminal justice and interdiction, while 30 percent goes for treatment and prevention programs (US CA).
The California Department of Corrections has an annual budget of $3.9 billion to deal with 161,000 inmates, 46,655 of whom are being incarcerated for drug offenses at a cost of about $1.1 billion each year (Budget). Nationwide, federal government figures show there are more than 1.7 million people in prisons and jails, 22 to 33 percent of those for drug offenses. At an average annual cost of about $20,000 per inmate, that adds nearly $7.8 billion to the drug war price tag (US CA).
In addition to all these costs, there are the soft costs of the drug war, which may be impossible to calculate. The cost of providing welfare and social services to families once dependant on drug profits, the large sums of money paid to foreign governments to join the war on drugs at our government’s insistence, the reduction of police and court officers whose workload is burdened by current drug laws.
Effects of the War
Drug use has increased in all categories since prohibition except that opium use is at a fraction of its peak level, although this is not an effect of the War on Drugs (In-School). Opium itself is not used as much because opium can be refined into more effective opiates such as heroin. By 1937, the use of marijuana, once an activity seemingly limited to jazz musicians, has become one undertaken by up to 50% of the youth of the United States (In-School). The big growth in use of marijuana happened however in the 1960s, well before the start of the war on drugs in 1971. President Richard Nixon stated that the increased drug use and drug related crime in the decade before 1971 was the cause for the war on drugs. Between 1972 and 1988 the use of cocaine increased more than fivefold (Controlling). The usage patterns of the current two most prevalent drugs, amphetamines and ecstasy, have shown similar gains (In-School).
In 1996, 56% of California voters voted for Proposition 215, legalizing the growing and use of marijuana for medical purposes. This created significant legal and policy tensions between the federal and state governments. Courts have since decided that state laws in conflict with a federal law about cannabis are not valid. Cannabis is restricted by federal law. Regardless of public opinion, marijuana could be the single most targeted drug in the drug war. It constitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990 and 2002, out of the overall drug arrests, 82% of the increase was for marijuana. In this same time period, New York experienced an increase of 2,640% for marijuana possession arrests (What Americans). As of 2006, marijuana has become the United States of America's biggest cash crop in terms of revenues (Marijuana).
Legalize and Tax?
Proponents of legalization suggest that their policy will save society money for several reasons. First, we will not have to pay police to enforce the present criminal-justice approach to drug usage. Second, we will be able to tax legal drugs, thereby raising revenue.
It should be stated initially that most people misconceive the amount of resources expended under the status quo for drug control. The FY 1994 federal budget allocates $7.51 billion for drug control (supply reduction) which includes criminal justice, interdiction, international programs and intelligence (National). State and local governments spend even more, $12.6 billion a year (National). Granted, this is a lot of money, but we should put these numbers in perspective. Americans spend about four billion dollars each summer for air conditioning. The citizens of Washington State spend $1.4 billion each year on legal gambling alone (Economics, par. 2). The national debt numbers in the trillions of dollars. One Stealth Bomber runs half a billion dollars. Indeed, only 1.4% of total government spending goes for law enforcement of all types, and an additional 1.0% for prosecution and prisons (Economics, par. 2). Out of this small percentage, 12% of spending for law enforcement was allocated to drug control activities, and about 25% of correctional (prison) spending was drug related (Economics, par. 2). Only 1.5% of total state and local government spending is attributed to drug control activities (Economics, par. 2). Thus, when taken in context, it is apparent that the costs of criminalized drugs nowhere approaches the financial obligations of government programs such as national defense, Social Security, or Medicare.
More important, if we legalized drugs on the assumption that by taxing them we could raise large amounts of revenue, we would be sadly mistaken. First, any such taxation scheme would perpetuate a criminal black market. Consequently, we would still have to spend money funding police, courts and the like to fight this problem. Second, if alcohol is any indication, we simply would not make that much money by taxing drugs. The total revenue collected from alcohol taxes at the federal, state, and local levels amounts to about $13.1 billion a year, a paltry sum compared to the social costs associated with alcohol consumption - something in the neighborhood of $100 billion (Economics, par. 3). Third, how would we structure a tax scheme for drugs? If we wanted to correlate higher taxes with higher risk behavior, logically we would tax the fifth joint more than the first (inasmuch as the fifth joint probably is more damaging to one's health). Further, it would cost money to create the governmental bureaucracy that would handle this taxation policy.
Thus, we do not spend that much on the drug war in comparison to other governmental programs, and taxation of legalized drugs would not result in that much revenue. But by far the most compelling economic argument against the legalization of drugs is the social costs associated with such a policy.
First, treating drug addicts is enormously expensive. Take crack babies as an example. In 1988, it cost $2.5 billion for the intensive care needed to keep the babies alive after birth (Economics, par. 5). But that was just the beginning of the expenses. It is estimated that it will cost $15 billion to prepare these children for kindergarten, and will then cost between $6 billion and $12 billion for every year of special learning programs (Economics, par. 5). Even assuming the low-ball figure, the social costs of educating all of the crack babies born in 1988 - not all crack babies, mind you, just those born that year - will run approximately $90 billion by the time they graduate from high school. Now to the extent that legalization will increase the drug addiction rates enormously, legalization seems like a very expensive policy indeed. And as for footing the bill: either common citizens will through taxes for government aid programs, or through increased insurance premiums (Economics, par. 5).
But treatment costs are just the first way in which drug addiction drains society. Already, drug addicts cost the country roughly $33 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and job-related accidents, according to a study conducted in 1987 by the Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (Economics, pars. 6-7). If legalized, addiction rates would increase and the cost would rise to between $140 billion and $210 billion a year (Economics, par. 6). And as for the loss of productivity and accidents, consumers will end up paying in the final costs of the produced goods.
Finally we must consider human lives in the economic calculus. As drug abuse causes more job related accidents, more people will be hurt or killed. Take, for example, the Conrail/Amtrak disaster of January 4, 1987. Because an engineer and a brakeman were high on marijuana, their train collided with another, killing sixteen people and injuring 175 (Economics, par. 9).
We spend approximately $20 billion a year on drug control activities. If drugs were legalized, we would see an increase in addiction rates. Consequently we would have more crack babies (the kind that already will cost the system $90 billion), decreased productivity (at a cost of between $140 billion and $210 billion), more job-related accidents, and more dead people. And given the potential black market effect, it is unlikely that we could raise even several billion dollars in tax revenue. From a purely economic standpoint, legalization is not cost effective.
Works Cited
“About.” Office of National Drug Control Policy. 31 May 2008
“Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration.” Federal Register 72 (6 June
2007): 31343.
“Budget Overview.” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 24 May
2008
“Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs.” Rand Corporation. 24 May
2008
“Drugs and Victims of Crime.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.
21 April 2008. 24 May 2008
“The Economics of Drug Legalization.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. 24 May 2008
“In-School Surveys.” Monitoring the Future. 24 May 2008
“Marijuana Production in the United States.” DrugScience.org. 24 May 2008
“National Drug Control Strategy: Reclaiming Our Communities from Drugs and
Violence.” Office of National Drug Control Policy. 24 May 2008
“Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2002.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of
Justice Statistics. 6 April 2003. 20 May 2008
“Prisoners 2001.” U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. 30 July 2002.
20 May 2008
“Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs.” Human Rights
Watch. May 2000. 22 May 2008
Schlosser, Eric. Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black
Market. Boston: Houghton, 2003.
“US CA: What Does The Drug War Cost?.” Media Awareness Project. 24 June 1999.
24 May 2008
“What Americans Need to Know about Marijuana.” Office of National Drug Control
Policy. 24 May 2008
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