LETTER OF THE WEEK

THE MONEY'S DOWN THE DRAIN

By E.F.

Re "Where our money goes" by Kevin Wehr and students (SN&R Essay, June 25):

The "war on drugs" is certainly where a lot of our money goes.

After 10 years of sobriety, I returned to active drug use and am
completely unable to see where our "war on drugs" has made any
difference in a decade. I have seen slight differences--like how the
number of individuals [who] will commit a crime to support their
habit seems to have risen. I wonder how many billions of dollars
have been spent to achieve this milestone, while our children's
schools are crumbling around them and millions of citizens have no
health insurance, people are losing jobs and soda pop is killing more
people from diabetes then illicit drugs are killing addicts.

We spend billions to destroy the supply which raises the price so
that the traffickers (who usually reside in a foreign country ) make
more money, while the users (in our country) go broke, thus leading
to such crimes as assault, murder, home invasions, kidnapping,
robbery, theft, child endangerment, starvation, domestic violence,
prostitution, fraud, terrorism ... and I could go on and on.

Instead, we could be spending our tax dollars right here in the good
old United States by attacking the demand and helping addicts. That
would create jobs, severely cut crime and end the never-ending
corruption in drug-producing countries like Afghanistan, Colombia and so on.

At least 500 economists (including Nobel laureates Milton Friedman,
George Akerlof and Vernon L. Smith) have noted that reducing the
supply of marijuana without reducing the demand causes the price, and
hence the profits of marijuana sellers, to go up, according to the
laws of supply and demand. The increased profits encourage the
production of more drugs despite the risks, providing a theoretical
explanation for why attacks on drug supply have failed to have any
lasting effect.

A 2008 study by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron has estimated that
legalizing drugs would inject $76.8 billion a year into the
U.S. economy--$44.1 billion from law-enforcement savings and at
least $32.7 billion in tax revenue ($6.7 billion from marijuana,
$22.5 billion from cocaine and heroin, remainder from other drugs).
Recent surveys help to confirm the consensus among economists to
reform drug policy in the direction of decriminalization and legalization.

Why do the taxpayers in this country allow our government to beat a
dead horse? The citizens can effect any change they wish--and not
just by voting--but by knowing and communicating with their elected officials.

E.F.

Sacramento

Pubdate: Thu, 23 Jul 2009

Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n000/a145.html