Drugs and crime

I've just posted something fairly lucid over at ConHome, which I shall cross-post here for future reference:

When people talk vaguely about 'drugs and crime', they are in fact muddling four quite distinct categories:

1. The selling or possession of drugs themselves, which is only a crime because the law says so, remembering that Prohibition and 'the war on drugs' are relatively new phenomena.

2. Drug dealers killing other drug dealers over turf wars, which of course only happens because drugs are illegal. You seldom hear abut rival pharmacists or off-licensees engaging in this sort of behaviour.

3. Crimes committed to pay for drugs that are far more expensive than they otherwise would be because they are illegal (we are all the victims of this if we get mugged or burgled or have our cars stolen). Prostitution is a special case here: not only are most activities relating to prostitution (apart from the act itself) illegal for no good reason, it appears that many young women turn to prostitution to fund their drug habits. Again, cigarettes and tobacco (as highly taxed as they are) are still not so expensive that large numbers of people turn to crime to fund their habits.

4. Crimes committed because of the influence of drugs themselves (i.e. driving while drunk or stoned) or crack (I think) that makes some people violent, which can be dealt with like any other similar crime (filling the prison places that are no longer required to house dealers and addicts!).