HOW TO PROFIT BY EXPANDING FREEDOM

Eliminating the Costs, Fiscal and Otherwise, of the Drug War

Spending huge sums of money and getting no results to justify the
expense: That's the relentless, and accurate, Republican critique of
President Barack Obama's efforts to revive the U.S. economy. But it
also describes a policy staunchly supported by Republicans as well as
Democrats decade after decade: the war on drugs.

When the government lays out hundreds of billions to keep
unemployment from rising above 8 percent, only to see it hit 10
percent, the obvious implication is that the policy didn't work. But
when the government lays out tens of billions to reduce illicit drug
use and finds that it has increased, the obvious implication is one
that eludes almost every politician in America.

A few weeks ago, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration published the latest chapter in a
long-running horror tale. In 2009, it found, nearly 22 million
Americans used illegal drugs -- a 9 percent increase from the
previous year and the highest rate since the survey began in 2002.

That happened even though federal, state and local authorities have
been expanding enforcement efforts against drugs. Since 1981,
Washington has gone from spending $1.5 billion a year to now spending
$17 billion a year.

How does the administration explain the jump in illegal activity? You
guessed it: Our policies are way too permissive. Commenting on the
rise in marijuana use, Gil Kerlikowske, head of the White House's
Office of National Drug Control Policy, insisted that "all of the
attention and the focus of calling marijuana 'medicine' has sent the
absolute wrong message to our young people."

What message does he mean? Presumably, that cannabis is not as
destructive as commonly portrayed by ONDCP and others. What makes the
message particularly troublesome is that it happens to be true.
Marijuana is not entirely without risks, but compared with such legal
alternatives as tobacco and alcohol, it's an alley cat among mountain lions.

The government has been using police and prisons to convey the
opposite message, with pitiful results, for a long time. Each year,
nearly 1.7 million people are arrested for drug violations, of which
758,000 are for mere possession of cannabis. About half a million
people are serving time in prison for drug offenses.

But these harsh policies don't seem to inhibit growers, dealers and
buyers. They persist in finding ways to do business no matter what.
The Vancouver-based International Centre for Science in Drug Policy
points out that over the past 20 years, weed in the United States has
gotten 58 percent cheaper, in inflation-adjusted terms.

Falling prices indicate the stuff is getting more abundant and
available, notwithstanding all the cops collaring stoners. The vast
majority of high school kids say pot is easy to get.

You might assume that more lenient policies would guarantee an
epidemic of drug use. In fact, the Netherlands, which has all but
legalized weed, has fewer potheads than we do, particularly among young people.

"Globally, drug use ... is not simply related to drug policy, since
countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not
have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones," concluded
the World Health Organization.

None of this is new, but it has fresh relevance because of budgetary
pressures that have forced citizens to ask what on earth the drug war
is accomplishing. Californians, whose state government is in a
bottomless fiscal hole, will vote next month on an initiative to
legalize cannabis. One big selling point is that it could yield a
$1.4 billion windfall to state coffers.

What is true for the Golden State is true for the other 49. In a new
study for the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, Harvard
economist Jeffrey Miron and research associate Katherine Waldock
estimate that, nationally, legalizing and taxing marijuana would save
$8.7 billion in enforcement costs and harvest $8.7 billion in revenue.

Instead of lavishing money arresting and incarcerating recreational
drug users, the drug users would provide funds for the rest of us.
Most of them would be more than happy to do so in exchange for the
freedom to indulge their habits. And the evidence suggests that we
would not even see an increase in drug use.

Substance abuse is known to impair clear thinking and good judgment.
But it's the people pushing harsh drug laws who seem to be lost in a fog.