Driving up to Dallas gave me some time to think. Would legalizing drugs really accomplish all that our libertarian friends think, or are they just living in a dreamworld?
Let’s establish the status quo. Marijuana is currently illegal to cultivate, possess, and consume to varying degrees across the US, except in very narrowly-defined instances.
Alcoholic beverages were once illegal in the US in much the same way as marijuana is now. This is widely regarded as a complete failure, as alcohol consumption was simply driven underground. Alcoholic beverages were readily available, provided my numerous criminal gangs that sprang up during Prohibition.
Marijuana legalization proponents point to this as evidence that criminalizing marijuana cannot work because, like alcohol, it is relatively easy for fairly inexperienced people to produce. They also point to the violent drug gangs that provide marijuana distribution to those who wish to consume it.
Given the above, let’s try to conduct a thought experiment. Let’s assume that marijuana is legalized to the Federal level; possession of virtually any amount is now legal, as is consumption and cultivation. Let’s place a bit of restriction on it, though. Let’s tax it and regulate its production and distribution in a way similar to that of alcoholic beverages.
Note that legalization by a single state would open up a big can of worms and make things much worse than decriminalizing at the national level. Marijuana from such a state would already be in the country and would “enjoy” a much greater freedom of movement. This would likely make the cartels stronger, because they would only need to concern themselves with “turf” and would not need to concern themselves with the problems inherent in crossing a national boundary.
I did a bit of research not too long ago on what it would take to produce and market alcoholic beverages. To say the process is Byzantine would be like saying getting a building permit in NY City is a simple and quick process. It would also be very expensive to pay for the Federal and State licenses. These fees would have been multiples of the revenues I might have expected.
This leads me to believe that there would be some growers who would pay the taxes and fees out of necessity in order to be able to sell their product in medicinal “clinics” and in boutiques where the marijuana would be marketed and sold like wine (“I’d like some Humboldt County Chronic and some Shasta Silver Haze”). It also leads me to believe that much would remain in the black (or gray) market (Tijuana Ditch Weed). Marijuana aficionados don’t tend toward strict following of rules. This is quite in line with current alcohol production and consumption patterns; alcoholic beverages in stores are marketed like other consumer goods and have had taxes and fees paid. Bootleggers are also still very active.
The upshot of all this is that revenue assumptions are probably very overoptimistic.
Now, where would this leave our friends in the cartels? I doubt that they’d all say “Well guys, we had a good run. Let’s go home now.” They will want to find something else to pursue, just like the booze gangs did when Prohibition was ended. The Mafia ended up in drugs (natch), prostitution, gambling, civic corruption via the unions, and still other new lines of business. It’s safe to assume they won’t suddenly turn to opening hardware stores, getting into IT, manufacturing toasters or radios, or anything else so benign.
As I see it, the so-called War on Drugs is unsuccessful partly because of the difficulties inherent in eliminating production and consumption of a product that is easy to produce by many people. The remaining difficulty is due to our lackadaisical attitude toward securing our borders (lots of marijuana comes in from British Columbia). This attitude has been discussed at length by all of us here. If our borders were actually secure, we’d at least reduce the effects of the Mexican (and other foreign) cartels.
Maybe the answer is some form of decriminalization done in concert with securing the borders.
If you want to participate, you must back up your assertions with some rational, logical argument. Simply asserting that marijuana is addictive and therefore must be eradicated off the face of the Earth needs to be backed up with how you might go about doing it. Likewise, asserting that the “War on Drugs” is an expensive and ineffective boondoggle needs to be supported with some discussion about the side effects of actually ending it and how we’d deal with the second and higher order effects of such an act. Cherry-picking articles alone doesn’t cut it either.
Note that I am only considering marijuana here. I am not in any way talking about hard drugs (e.g., methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, etc.). We’ll talk about that another time.
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