Legalization as a defensive measure

By Fester

I believe markets are a pretty useful indicator of what people want.  Quite a few people are willing to pay a whole lot of money for a variety of narcotics that are currently illegal but accessible in the United States and other wealthy nations.  This has created a massive black market where norm enforcement is through violence.  The Small Wars Journal has an update of the narco-guerilla fight with the Mexican government.  And the picture is not promising for the Mexican central government and therefore for the United States:

So far, the conflict has killed over 1,400 Mexicans, 500 of them law enforcement officers.1 No longer fearing retaliation, cartel gunmen assault soldier and high-ranking federale alike. The criminal threat is not only a threat to public order but to the state....

As the intensity of the violence grows, so does the possibility that Tijuana and Juarez’s high-intensity street warfare will migrate north. Recent cartel warfare in Arizona indicates that America has become a battleground for drug cartels clashing over territory, putting American citizens and law enforcement at risk.... Command of the shadow economy guarantees riches and political influence....

“Black globalization” also creates a neo-feudal power structure in which power flows to non-state forces controlling large slums. These fortresses of criminal influence are no-go areas for law enforcement and act as channeling points for the global illicit economy. Utilizing temporary autonomous zones in urban and rural centers, criminal can tap into a $2.5 trillion global illicit economy growing at 7 times the rate of growth in the legal economy....

Mexico stands at a crossroads. A possibility exists that Mexico could very well become criminal-state, with centralized criminal activity dominating the Mexican polity. Cartel power could become so deeply rooted within the Mexican state that uprooting it would mean civil war. Such an outcome would prove disastrous for American interests.

The Taliban is able to sustain their operational pace in fighting against ISAF and the supported Kabul government because they have been able to tap into the cash flows generated by the opium/heroin production and distribution markets.  Opium eradication efforts sponsored by either the Kabul government or foreign military forces pushes farmers to turn non-state actors for protection.  Those non-state actors provide protection for a cash fee and temporary loyalty.  The loyalty buys silence and logistical support while the cash provides weapons, corruption and a means of making credible promises.

We also know that prohibition has not been successful in eliminating drug use in the United States or other rich nations.  It is a moral/political posture of luxury that may bite us in our ass as it fuels a visible insurgency in Afghanistan, potentially funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and could potentially lead to a massive failed state in Mexico with the attendant mass migration flows that would entail.

Bringing the drug market into the overt and open white market and away from the black market would be a significant blow to these insurgencies.  Legalizing most narcotics and then taxing them at a high rate is a viable option.  It will strengthen weak states where the United States has a strong interest for stability. This will occur by removing a significant funding stream for the guerrillas and transferring it to the state.    Prohibition is a failed luxury that I am not sure we can afford for that much longer.   

(h/t Fabius Maximus)

Comments

[Libby]

It's such an obvious answer, but the prohibs are so invested in their 'war' that they don't want to give up their cash cow.

[tyree]

So answer me this:

All users of illicit drugs know that their habits contribute to corruption and murder, lots of it. Yet they still pay money which they often get by criminal means to support their habits. How do we get from todays situation in the USA to the wonderful nirvana where drug users become magically transformed into responsible citizens. Lay out the plan so I can read it, because I don't see how it will ever work.

On the other hand, the days when we could raise our children to obey the law and expect them to be decent people are long gone, based on what is legal in today's America.

[fester]

Tyree --- thanks for excluding all other alternatives --- what an honest argument style --- I don't expect drug users to be amazing members of society, or at least any more than they are now. What I am expecting is for Monsanto, Con-Agra, or anyone else with good lawyers and biologists to be able to massively outcompete on price and quality of drugs compared to the present market place. Diverting the money flows to areas where dispute resolution is through an overt and enforcable legal system is superior to money flows that would occur no matter what that go through systems where the only dispute resolution system is violence and corruption.

I am not looking for angels, I am looking for incentives...

[lumpenscholar]

fester,

One problem is that high taxes will keep illegal drug cartels competitive.

Another is that the drug lords aren't going to suddenly follow the rules. Expect Con-Agra, et al, to be treated as competing cartels. I.e., their executives and chemists will be murdered in their homes, their labs bombed, etc. The drug lords will not go quietly into that goodnight.

[Sense]

Tyree, maybe the country will deal with it much as it deal with the 21st Amendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) - it will move away from an awful/destructive black market vice to an awful/destructive white market vice. At least the latter we have some semblance of control over. Sure, there will still be crime and problems, but a major piece of terror funding will disappear.

[Seerak]

One problem is that high taxes will keep illegal drug cartels competitive.

Correct. This is a point often lost on the "legalize but heavily tax" crowd. The Canadian government found that out when they raised taxes on cigarettes so high, smuggling them in from the United States became a profitable, if drug-running-like trafficking racket, in an otherwise legal good.

How did they put and end to it? They lowered the taxes to the point that smuggling became uneconomical given the return.

Another is that the drug lords aren't going to suddenly follow the rules. Expect Con-Agra, et al, to be treated as competing cartels. I.e., their executives and chemists will be murdered in their homes, their labs bombed, etc. The drug lords will not go quietly into that goodnight.

But with their economic engine cut off, how long are they going to be able to keep that up? Why would anyone continue to buy from them, given the costs of business involved? That would last as long as those criminal banana gangs out to get Chiquita.

They are only as dangerous as they are thanks to the drug prohibition laws handing them a highly profitable market. Were I them, I'd be feeding the anti-drug lobby like nobody's business, much as the Vegas casinos fund anti-gambling efforts in neighboring states.

[anonymous]

"All users of illicit drugs know that their habits contribute to corruption and murder, lots of it."

All users of illicit drugs know that their habits contribute to corruption and murder, lots of it committed by law enforcement.

There, I fixed that for you.

[Libby]

You're confusing drug abusers with drug consumers. The majority of consumers are responsible, otherwise lawabiding citizens who are not robbing convenience stores or breaking into your car to get a 'fix.'

The violence and crime come from the dealers end, battling over turf and low level addicts. The addicts can be treated more efficiently as a health problem and the dealers can be put out of business. How many alcohol distributors have you seen bombed by cartels lately? How many shootouts between competitors over territory? How many people have died from toxic bathtub gin?

Our public school system is rotting away from lack of funds while we spend billions punishing people for victimless crime of ingesting an illegal substance. Legalization and regulation is efficient, cheap and along with serious treatment programs, stands a chance of mitigating the adverse effects of drug abuse.

[lumpenscholar]

"But with their economic engine cut off..."

How are you going to cut it off? It's on until pharma. companies can get cheap product to market. If the companies face a real war (executives / chemists/ sales staff murdered, labs bombed, shipments hijacked or blown up w/ IEDs, etc.), then how will they get the product to market? And if they gear up with enough security to get the product to market, it won't necessarily be cheap enough to compete with the drug cartels already established markets.

[lumpenscholar]

Libby, the bootleggers never had the money, organization, or armies that the drug cartels do. They had no real means to significantly resist legal competition. Drug cartels now have actual armies and they can and will violently resist legal competition.

Legalization may be the way to go. It depends on if the pharmaceutical companies can deliver product to market at competitive prices. We can't know if they can or can't until we try. But the drug cartels will certainly treat it as a turf war and will respond with all means, including significant violence, to any competition.

[Evil Roy Slade]

I'm' gonna start doin drugs when big pharma starts sellin the stuff. Then when I've fucked up my life, and hopefully some others, run to the trial lawyers so I can sue the bastards that ruined me.

[John]

No no no. The only reason the narcos can act as they do is because their profit margins are huge, not hundreds of percent, but thousands. It takes that kind of money to fund organizations large enough to force out government forces. very few of the drugs involved are expensive to grow or prepare, so even with a couple of hundred percent tax the amounts of money made will look like what we see in another vice industry, tobacco. The major price inflation comes from the fact that these things are traded on the black market, not the cost of protection. The narcos have plenty of money left over to pay for solid gold bathroom fixtures in houses they will never use. Further, we don't need pharma to produce cocaine, Ma and Pa farmer can do a decent job.

I wouldn't worry about the narcos targeting other producers, without the networks needed to smuggle the stuff into the US, or smuggle it across the US there will be far too many small producers for the narcos to target them all, or for them to even bother given how insignificant an effect targeting the new producers would yield. Instead we should expect a repeat of the repeal of prohibition, the narcos will look elsewhere for business.

The best argument for repeal is that the current prohibition has little positive effect and massive, massive negative side effects. Hell, with the money saved on enforcement and incarceration (not to mention the lives lost to felony convictions) we could fund more than enough drug counseling, treatment, and rehabilitation centers.

[John]

Lumpen,

The bootleggers may not have had military guns, but the mob most certainly did. Ditto with respect to the organization.

Do you expect that the Colombians will send armies to Thailand, when the thais undercut them, or that the Thais will then send armies to Afghanistan, when they in turn are undercut? Even if they wanted to, do you think they could eradicate the production of their competitors when we can't do it. They may have alot of money by some standards, but compared to the resources the U.S. throws at the problem its small potatoes. Think of the amounts spent on eradication via "Plan Colombia" its in the Billions.

No, once legalized it will become just like any other commodity. The price will drop to the point that some growers will be able to make a living off of it, and some won't.

[Hucbald]

Prohibition didn't work before, and it doesn't work now. It is, in fact, counterproductive because it enables organized crime, now as it did when alcohol was prohibited.

I've only been saying this for, oh, nigh onto thirty years now.

In the mean time, billions of dollars have been wasted on, "the war on drugs," which is really nothing more than a war on reason and reality.

But then, lawyers get rich on anti-drug laws, and lawyers make the laws, so OF COURSE reason doesn't prevail, the love of money does.

[tyree]

"Drug Consumers" know they are supporting murder, they suffer from an acute lack of morality. Supporting murder and corruption is not a responsible action.

Seerak- The vast majority of the murders are by the drug gang members so you didn't "fix it" for me.

Why don't the "responsible" drug users just give it up for 4 years, drive the drug cartels out of business and demonstrate what upstanding citizens they are? I would vote to legalize drugs in a second if they could demonstrate that they care about my safety as much as they care about their high. To paraphrase Golda Meir, "The illicit drug trade will continue until the drug users care as much for their fellow man as they care about hemp."
In a nutshell, the pro-legalization groups have to get away from the cop killing, anti-social Berkeley anarchist sort of crowd they usually smoke crack with, and demonstrate that their addiction can be a benefit to society. That is a very tall order, and it will require a very well thought out plan. The plan will have to have many steps involving a tough carrot and stick approach. The addicts do something positive, we relax part of the law. When they reach a certain milestone, we relax another part of the law. If they don't show any progress, the system freezes at that point until the addicts start acting like people who care about other human beings.
Here in Orange County,CA. the curfew on our beaches used to be 1:00am until the gangs starting hanging out there and people were murdered. Now the curfew is 10:00pm. Not just for the gang members, but for me and my children as well. I am tired of being penalized for other peoples criminal activity. If the druggies want me to support their addiction, I want something in return. Get me my beaches back, and then we will talk.

[tyree]

FEster- I didn't exclude any alternatives. I want the druggies to come up with a plan that they say will work that I can support. That's what I wrote.

I don't want Obama's plan, I don't want McCain's plan. I want the illicit drug "consumers" to develop at plan that gets me back some of what I have lost to the drug gangs. "Legalization" is one, extremely insufficient word.

[peter jackson]

How about we get the government out of the drug business altogether? I don't want one nickel of my tax dollars going to protect junkies from the consequences of their stupid choices. Drug addiction isn't a social problem, it's a personal problem. Prohibition masks this because it forces those who crave drugs to steal in order to afford black market prices. With currently illegal drugs legalized and their prices fall to normal levels, and available under a regulatory regime similar to alcohol and tobacco, theft and armed robbery are no longer necessary; a mere paycheck suffices.

[peter jackson]

FEster- I didn't exclude any alternatives. I want the druggies to come up with a plan that they say will work that I can support. That's what I wrote.

Actually, this is what you wrote:

How do we get from todays situation in the USA to the wonderful nirvana where drug users become magically transformed into responsible citizens.

Either you believe in magic and Nirvana, or you answered your own question. And by demanding an impossible result, you exclude EVERY realistic alternative.

yours/
peter.

[js]

The short answer is to treat narcotics and what-have-you identically to the way we treat alcohol. Restrict sales to adults. Tax to the point that any more taxes cause smuggling, any less promotes more use. Ban their use when driving, and so on.

Is it perfect? No.

We're human and so we don't get perfect alternatives. Some are just less bad than others.

And what we have now is plenty bad.

[Jack]

Actually,

WRT those who think that Big Pharma would become targets, I honestly doubt it would be a problem. Americans will do nearly anything for money and if it is dangerous, charge accordingly.

By making drugs legal, most people would buy from legal sources, even if it was more expensive than what you can get on the street. Yes, yes, it won't be a perfect solution, but most of the money will not settle in the hands of the drug cartels. Ending prohibition killed off bootlegers, and ending drug prohibition will kill off the drug cartels.

[lumpenscholar]

John,

"The major price inflation comes from the fact that these things are traded on the black market, not the cost of protection."

I wasn't talking about the cost of protection the drug lords pay; I was talking about the cost of security legal producers will have to pay to protect themselves
from the drug cartels. Although the next point you make is interesting.

"I wouldn't worry about the narcos targeting other producers ... there will be far too many small producers for the narcos to target them all, or for them to even bother given how insignificant an effect targeting the new producers would yield."

I'm not sure ma and pa are going into the production business. It would be FDA regulated, for one, and there is a certain amount of startup capital needed. But, that said, if it can be done by many small scale organizations, it's much more plausible.

John: "The bootleggers may not have had military guns, but the mob most certainly did. Ditto with respect to the organization."

I wasn't talking about military weaponry. I was talking about literal military units working for the drug cartels. As one example, check out the Zetas, a bunch of ex-Mexican commandos who turned criminal. These guys are ex-special forces soldiers, now working as a unit for a drug cartel along the Mexican-US border, and they've set up their own training camps.

"Do you expect that the Colombians will send armies to Thailand ..."

No, because transportation and logistics would be a major problem. They are NOT a problem across the US-Mexico border, so yes, they would operate in the US (and, in fact, most probably ARE operating in the US now).

"... do you think they could eradicate the production of their competitors when we can't do it..."

In general we try to do it as a police activity. They operate on a war footing, where there are no trials or standards of evidence, and you shoot it up just because you kinda suspect it might be a competing lab or the house of an executive of a competing organization.

But no, they won't be able to eradicate it. That wasn't my point. They only need to make it expensive enough (through security costs, insurance, etc.) that their illegal drugs can still compete.

[tyree]

Peter,
Taking one sentence out of a very short paragraph does not outline my thoughts. I didn't "demand" anything.

"All users of illicit drugs know that their habits contribute to corruption and murder, lots of it. Yet they still pay money which they often get by criminal means to support their habits. How do we get from todays situation in the USA to the wonderful nirvana where drug users become magically transformed into responsible citizens. Lay out the plan so I can read it, because I don't see how it will ever work."

That is what I wrote. It does not exclude all other alternatives. AS you can see, it is quite plainly asking for alternatives. The middle sentence does include a "slight" amount of sarcasm, but that is because I lived through Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, with all their fame and fortune, dying from drug overdoses a generation ago. If they couldn't handle drugs with all of the resources at their control, I don't see how anyone can. Once again, "legalization" is too short and inadequate for any substantial debate. We need a plan.

[Sean]

"Expect Con-Agra, et al, to be treated as competing cartels. I.e., their executives and chemists will be murdered in their homes, their labs bombed, etc. The drug lords will not go quietly into that goodnight."

I know, I know. Remember how the Jack Daniels family was lined up and slaughtered the day after the 21st Amendment was ratified? And look at what a bunch of lawless ninnies Jordan, Alexander Valley, Hop Kiln and the rest of the wild bunch of Healdsburg have proven to be.

Ahem. Go aheahd and kling to whatever theories you have to to justify the feelings of moral superiority that flow from watch dirty addicts and dealers 'get theirs', but enjoy that glass of syrah after popping a nice Xanax to take the edge off the day, sir. Alas, there is no difference. NONE.

[M. Simon]

Illegal drugs fill the same receptors in the brain that Dr. prescribed dugs fill.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/10/class-war.html

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/10/round-pegs-in-round-holes.html

[M. Simon]

Let me see if I can make the links clickable:

Class War

Round Pegs In Round Holes