HOW TERRORISTS PROFIT FROM DRUGS

During the last Super Bowl, you may have seen the government's TV ads (your
tax dollars at work) claiming that teenagers who smoke marijuana help
finance terrorists. Similar ads were published in newspapers.

The Libertarian Party responded with a takeoff on the government's claims. A
USA Today ad showed America's "Drug Czar" John Walters saying, "This week, I
had lunch with the president, testified before Congress and helped funnel
$40 million in illegal drug money to groups like the Taliban." The ad said
it's the Drug War that enables terrorists to raise large amounts of money.

Last week Drug War advocates tried to refute the Libertarian ad. Dexter
Ingram of the Heritage Foundation wrote:

Like it or not, drug-users in America do help finance the terrorists who
attack us. The sellers rely on volume for their profits; as long as we
continue to purchase and use in bulk, they can count on steady and expanding
profits as far as the eye can see.

With all due respect to Mr. Ingram (whose intelligence I have no reason to
doubt) and the Heritage Foundation (which sometimes explains free market
principles), I think Mr. Ingram has missed the point.

Why Drug Profits Are Big

If a large volume for some product is sufficient to finance terrorism, why
don't terrorists raise money by selling computers or aspirin or food?

Well, why don't they?

The answer is that those products generate very small profits per sale,
while drug profits are astronomical.

Whenever the profits in computers, aspirin or food increase, the supply of
the item expands - pushing prices and profits back again to levels similar
to those of other products.

And why are drug profits astronomical?

Because drugs are illegal.

If drugs were legal - if Smith Kline, Eli Lilly or Bayer could sell drugs -
prices would be so low that the profit would be no larger than in computers
or food. So how could the terrorists make big money in such a business?

The Black Market In Drugs

When the government interferes with a product in wide demand - through price
controls or outright prohibition - a "black market" develops.

A black market is a free market existing in defiance of the government.

Because it's illegal, a black market attracts only people willing to defy
the government and risk going to prison. Since they're already outside the
law, these people generally are quite willing to use violence to keep
competitors out of their markets. The violence-imposed monopolies cause
prices and profits to be much higher than those in a legal, free market.

So the Drug War creates a logical way for terrorists to raise money.

The Drug War also encourages corruption - as some of the oversized profits
subvert policemen, prosecutors and judges who will look the other way.

Trying to stamp out a popular product is like trying to hold back the tides.
And so prohibition inevitably leads to more aggressive law-enforcement -
violations of civil liberties, police raids that kill the wrong people, and
sentences way out of proportion to the "crimes" committed.

Thus government interference in drugs leads easily to violence, the killing
of innocent people, corruption, tyranny and injustice.

That's what happened with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. That's what's
happening with drug prohibition today.

Legal And Illegal Markets

The Drug Warriors try to scare us by pointing to conditions in today's
illegal market and claiming they'd be even worse in a legal market: "If you
think drugs are a problem now, imagine if they were legal - with pushers on
every street corner harassing your children."

But when drugs were completely legal in America, there were no pushers. When
people could go to the drugstore and buy Bayer heroin off the shelf in a
safe, measured dosage (for pain relief, as a sedative, or because of an
addiction), the price was so low that no pusher could succeed selling drugs
of unknown origin on the street.

If you haven't studied the history of drugs to be aware of how much safer
(and less-often abused) they were when completely legal, I can understand
why you're afraid of relegalizing them.

But by now you should be well aware that government uses self-serving
propaganda to expand its own power. As the saying goes, "Truth is the first
casualty of war." That applies to the War on Drugs and - yes - the War on
Terrorism.

If you want to end the dangers of drugs, the violence, corruption, tyranny
and injustice, we have to end the insane War on Drugs.

Drugs And Terrorists

Do the terrorists sell drugs to finance their operations?

Frankly, I don't know. And I try not to make assertions on matters I haven't
studied extensively.

But I can be pretty sure of one thing: Terrorists aren't selling computers,
aspirin or food.