The most embarrassing graph in American drug policy

[n2doc]

By Harold Pollack, Published: May 29, 2013 at 2:29 pm
When it comes to drugs, it’s all about prices.

The ability to raise prices is– at least is perceived to be–a critical function of drug control policy. Higher prices discourage young people from using. Higher prices encourage adult users to consume less, to quit sooner, or to seek treatment. (Though higher prices can bring short-term problems, too, as drug users turn to crime to finance their increasingly unaffordable habit.)

An enormous law enforcement effort seeks to raise prices at every point in the supply chain from farmers to end-users: Eradicating coca crops in source countries, hindering access to chemicals required for drug production, interdicting smuggling routes internationally and within our borders, street-level police actions against local dealers.

That’s why this may be the most embarrassing graph in the history of drug control policy. (I’m grateful to Peter Reuter, Jonathan Caulkins, and Sarah Chandler for their willingness to share this figure from their work.) Law enforcement strategies have utterly failed to even maintain street prices of the key illicit substances. Street drug prices in the below figure fell by roughly a factor of five between 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile the number of drug offenders locked up in our jails and prisons went from fewer than 42,000 in 1980 to a peak of 562,000 in 2007.



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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/29/the-most-embarrassing-graph-in-american-drug-policy/

[Scuba]

1. See, it's working. Or so say stockholders in private prisons.

[BlueStreak]

2. Imagine how different things would be if we taxed drugs

and used some of those tax proceeds to fund addiction recovery programs. And we could use part of the funds to help create educational and employment opportunities for those most affected by the drug problem.

Which approach do you think would be more successful? (assuming that we define success as reducing addiction, ruined families, and drug-related violence)

[newfie11]

3. Just like Colorado

All the taxes on pot sales is going to make them a bundle.

[BlueStreak]

4. It is a first step

Do you know if Colorado is funding about addition programs with any of the tax money, or any economic development programs for the most distressed neighborhoods that tend to use a lot of drugs?

I am not in favor of taxing drugs just to raise money for the state. But taxing drugs and using the proceeds to attack the root causes of drug abuse makes perfect sense to me.

[newfie11]

5. I don't know

I happened to catch a bit on tv about the amount of Money the state would be making. I was surprised by the amounts. I remember thinking pot was not going to be cheap lol.