Mark Mardell over at the BBC has a closer look at Transform's cost-benefit analysis of legalising/regulating drugs and the Home Office's turgid response:
Today's Home Office statement offers another reason for not considering the legalisation/regulation model:
"The legalisation of drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by organised career criminals; such criminals would simply seek new sources of illicit revenue through crime."
This strikes me as an odd argument, as it implies that it is pointless trying to eliminate any area of criminality because the bad guys would simply go and find something else bad to do.
... which I couldn't have put better myself.
Interestingly, Transform's headline figure (assuming no change in drug consumption) is that the cost to society would fall by two-thirds from £16 billion to £5 billion (a £10 billion 'saving'). It does not factor in the potential tax receipts/user charges. Bung in £10 a day for 300,000 heroin users, £10 a week for 4,000,000 cannabis smokers and £4 a week for 500,000 people who take ecstasy tablets, and we - or more to the point they - have covered the bulk of that cost.
What's not to like?
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Fun with numbers
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8 comments:
It also implies thst career criminals are knowingly leaving opportunities to make money from crime untouched at the moment because of the can sell drugs instead.
Like it! I have always regretted that I didn't pursue a career in drugs or porn. They are such guaranteed money spinners.
So whilst legalising drugs, legalise (or rather decriminalise) prostitution.
L, re prostitution, see New Zealand.
Chalcedon, yes, the US-imposed treaty was mentioned in one of the dumbass bansturbatory letters in today's Metro. Ho hum. Yet another treaty we'll have to wriggle out of (along with Nato, EU, UN, G20, WTO, IMF etc).
Prohibition may (or may not, I'm undecided) be wrong, but I find many of the arguments for legalisation to be very badly made.
It also implies that career criminals are knowingly leaving opportunities to make money from crime untouched at the moment because of the can sell drugs instead.
Many such gangs already are involved in other activities, e.g. people/weapon smuggling, armed robbery, kidnapping, extortion, fraud, even terrorism. At any point in time they may leave opportunities untouched, due to limited resources, comparative advantage etc.
junkies can afford drugs on their benefits and don't have to steal so petty crime goes down.
I'm always amazed when I see libertarians (making an assumption from your profile here Chalcedon) use the term "have to steal". No one has to steal anything under any circumstance. They freely choose to burgle or mug others - all issues regarding legality and price of drugs are irrelevant. Also, why should we pay benefits to someone just to sit around all day and take drugs?
IIRC, we have ~100 times as many heroin addicts now as in 1970, around the time the law on drugs was made much stricter. However over the last 40 years there has also been a massive change in the law, media, politics and education to make excuses for bad behaviour, blaming everything and everyone but the criminal for crime ("they're victims too!"). We've also seen during this time the worst effects of a soul destroying welfare state that encourages dependency rather than self-reliance.
Seems to me that drugs and their prohibition are not really the problem here - failure to hold everyone accountable for their actions is. Legalisation of drugs may be a good idea on libertarian grounds (John Stuart Mill and all that), but I believe we will be sadly disappointed in the extent to which crime reduces if/when it takes place.
Whatever else the criminals get into, we can have a look and see if it's worth decriminalising that too.
Ed, hang about here, when Chalcedon said 'have to steal' he may have been more correct to say 'are likely to', but under the laws of economics that's the same thing.
If you have the choice of locking your car or not, you probably lock it, because 'it is likely' that somebody will nick it, even though they don't 'have to'.
EV, excellent point.
TEV. anything particular in mind? I'm hoping not anything on the list in my previous message. Alternatively, we could just get rid of these criminals. Rather old-fashioned I know, but might help.
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