The folly of the legalize drugs movement

There is one political movement today that cuts across political dividing lines, and that is the legalize drugs movement. You will find conservatives and liberals alike who lambaste the war on drugs as an expensive failure, who claim that the only people punished by the anti-drug movement are the victims of drugs, and who claim that the legislation of illicit drugs is an invasion of personal freedoms. According to their rosey outlook, we can solve all of this by legalizing drugs and regulating and taxing them. But does that belief reflect market realities?

First, it is especially humorous to see otherwise free market conservatives endorsing this idea of legalize, regulate, and tax. Think about this for a moment. Let's say we do legalize drugs. Government has two options. They can regulate and tax similarly to the way they regulate and tax alcohol right now. Is that going to go anywhere in reducing the negative impact drugs make on society? Not likely. If anything, that course of action is going to take drugs and move them from what is right now essentially a niche market and turn them into a mass market product. The threshold for addiction to most illegal drugs is much lower than the threshold for alcohol or nicotine, and with the legitimate money of corporations behind the marketing efforts, this is going to lead to a mushrooming of drug related problems in society. Even more people are going to become addicted, even more people are going to spend every last dime they have on drugs, and even more people are going to be destitute and violently seek out their next high.

Okay, now let's say we go with option two and we legalize the drugs and heavily regulate and heavily tax them. What have we solved? Any time there is a market for a product, and we have to admit that there will always be a market for drugs, and government steps in and heavily taxes and heavily regulates them, a black market in that product is inevitable. The black market leaves buyers and sellers extremely vulnerable to extortion, blackmail, and violence. Additionally, while the product is cheaper and more easily available, it is also of lower quality and occasionally extremely dangerous. The heavy regulation and tax route is going to do two things. It is going to create one legitimate market that is difficult to participate in except for the wealthy, and it is going to create a black market that is even more dangerous than the one we currently face.

I'm going to refrain from tarring and feathering all of those out their that support the legalization of drugs. Some truly believe that this is the solution to the problem. I think many more are trying to put a legitimate face on this, though, for purely selfish reasons-they want legal access to a product that they themselves use or want to use. The more and more I read on the legalization, regulation, and taxation of drugs, the more I see similarities between that other farcical movement, the medical marijuana movement. Neither movement really seems to be concerned about the good of society, but rather the selfish wants of the few.

(Disclaimer: I would support marijuana as a legitimate pharmaceutical product. I do not support medical marijuana laws that allow individuals to cultivate their own product, much as I would not support laws that allow people to manufacture their own codeine, morphine, or vicodin.)