Economic Viewpoint MORE PEOPLE ARE SAYING 'YES' TO LEGALIZING DRUGS
GARY S. BECKER

06/27/1988
Business Week
Pg. 20
Copyright 1988 McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Cocaine and other drugs remain popular despite prisons crowded with drug dealers and military attacks on foreign sources of supply. Neither the Reagan Administration's high-profile war against drugs, nor campaigns in schools and the media, nor street prices that are many times the cost of drug production have succeeded in breaking America's costly habit.

More and more people recognize that the war on drugs has failed, enough so that quite conventional people are starting to consider what was unthinkable only a short time ago--legalization. In the 10 months since I wrote in favor of such a radical change in policy (BW--Aug. 17), support has come from the mayors of several cities and from articles in Foreign Policy, The Economist, and the British medical journal Lancet. The New York Times displayed a story on the sudden interest in legalizing drugs on its front page. PUNISHMENT AND CRIME. One difficulty with the present antidrug approach is that each new step to widen the battle only worsens other problems. The police spend about one-quarter of their time tracking down drug sellers instead of combating robberies and other crimes against persons. Despite widespread concern about whether our armed forces can adequately defend U. S. strategic interests, Congress recently passed bills that would broaden the military's mission to include attacks on drug smugglers and foreign sources of supply.

Calls for harsh punishment for pushers are popular with politicians, who are increasingly pressuring state legislatures to take action. A bill pending in New York would make possession of even a small amount of crack subject to a stiff jail sentence. But severe penalties encourage dealers to step up violent attacks on drug agents or anyone else seen as a threat to their freedom. An old dictum of criminal justice states that criminals commit worse crimes when lesser crimes are punished severely.

Some people are opposed to legalization for adults because they fear that children will then have ready access to drugs. But the present system encourages dealers to use children to sell drugs because children are dealt with more leniently than adult dealers. If drugs could be sold to adults, it might be easier to reduce drug sales to children, since the police and courts could then concentrate on apprehending and punishing people who sell to children.

Politicians are so intent on showing their opposition to drugs that they are even reluctant to sponsor measures that would provide drug users with sterilized needles to help check the spread of AIDS, one of the most serious health problems in the world. More than a quarter of AIDS cases in the U. S.--and about half of all AIDS deaths in New York City--originate not from sexual activity but from contaminated needles used to inject heroin and other drugs. Addicts would have ready access to clean needles if drugs were legal and sold openly.

No doubt drug use would expand if drugs became legal and street prices dropped. Drinking increased greatly after Prohibition ended in 1933, mainly because liquor and other alcoholic beverages became much cheaper. However, today's high drug prices force many heavy users to finance their expensive habits by theft, robbery, or dealing in drugs themselves. The association between crime and drug use would become much weaker than it is now if drugs were legal and cheap.

The harmful effects of greater drug use are mitigated by the fact that most drugs are much less addictive than is generally believed. For example, the National Institute on Drug Abuse says 95% of the 30 million Americans who have tried cocaine either stopped prior to becoming addicted or managed eventually to break their addiction. And legalization would not necessarily lead to more addiction, which is often caused by peer pressure, unhappiness, and stress. Many people suffering from those ills now simply resort to heavy drinking or other destructive behavior. SOCIAL TAXES. In our society, we have a more serious problem that is handled in a much more open way. Alcohol abuse is far more socially destructive than cocaine, marijuana, and heroin rolled together. Many more innocent people suffer from drunk drivers and drunkenness on the job and in the home than from people who drive or work while under the influence of drugs. But we try to reduce the social harm from heavy drinking through high taxes on alcoholic beverages and by punishing drinkers who cause accidents and merchants who sell liquor to minors.

I think similar policies should be followed with drugs. As with alcohol, taxes on the legal purchase and sale of drugs would have some dampening effect on drug sales without making addicts financially desperate. This would be a so-called social tax, similar to the ones successfully used against smoking and drinking. People who cause serious accidents while driving or working under the influence of drugs, or who sell drugs to children, should be punished harshly. A policy of legalizing drugs would then be both sensible and humane--and would drastically reduce the social cost of the drug problem.