There are a couple of episode of South Park that address the drug legalization debate. In "Major Boobage," the kids figure out that you can get high from sniffing cat pee.
The town overreacts and bans all cats. In a more recent episode,"Medicinal Fried Chicken," they took on the medical marijuana debate.
It's pretty clear where the folks that make South Park stand on the issue. They take a pretty libertarian view towards a lot of these social issues whether it's homosexuality, political correctness or drug legalization. Still, there are those that disagree. For example, the DEA is not a big fan of drug legalization and James Q. Wilson argues against it by appealing to utilitarian considerations.
Cut all of these three prices—the cash cost, the risk of not getting a decent quality, and the absence of searching and running risks—and the total price reduction would not be by a factor of 20 but probably by a factor of 50. Consumption will go up dramatically.
Now what happens? Here is where the only meaningful debate can exist. Do you think that there will be a decrease in drug crime? Maybe—if the crime committed by users seeking money to buy drugs and the dealers protecting their right to sell drugs falls by an amount greater than the increase in crime committed by addicted users who are no longer capable of holding a job. Not all coke or heroin addicts are incapacitated, but a significant fraction—perhaps one-fifth, perhaps more—are. Say we have 1 million users now, with 200,000 of them so dependent on the drug that they are useless for any activity, including holding a job. Now suppose after legalization we have 5 million users, with 1 million totally zonked.
We can support the 1 million on welfare, though I think the political chance of that is utterly remote. Or we can let them fend for themselves by stealing. They may well steal more than the 200,000 steal when the price of drugs is much higher. Take a guess. But remember that after we create the 1 million, we can't turn the clock back. We shall have them forever.
I don't think he makes his case because it's not at all clear what he predicts will, in fact, occur. If marijuana is legalized, taxed, and regulated like alcohol, then underage access and use might go down. Secondly, it's not exactly clear that even if there is increased experimentation that it will lead to more people on welfare. The argument basically relies on a negative stereotype of recreational drug users and doesn't ofer much in the way of establishing the causal connection between experimentation and welfare. The increase in tax dollars might eleviate some of that problem even if it does occur. Plus, we could redirect some of the DEA's budget. So, it's just not clear to me that the harm argument against legalization is cogent. It doesn't seem any better off than the harm argument offered against same-sex marriage. For a pro-legalization argument based on liberty principles, see Thomas Szasz's "The Ethics of Addiction."
Recent Comments