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What kind of libertarian would I be if I didn’t start my new blog with the first entry calling for an end to the drug war?

Too often legislation is passed to deal with a social issue. Sometimes this hastily passed legislation seems like a common-sense solution, but more often than not the results are diametric to those intended. The drug prohibition is one of these solutions. Sure, on the face of it, the goals of the drug war seem sensible, humanitarian, just. Who can debate that drug abuse can’t destroy lives? It is easy to see the lack of real achievement in the lives of those saddled with addiction. However, many seemingly drug-related problems are actually prohibition related problems. Some of the related problems wouldn’t even exist in a world with legal drugs. This is demonstrated by the fact that they didn’t exist until the drugs were made contraband.

It is time to consider ending the War on Drugs because the monetary and social costs far exceed any possible benefits. The economic cost of the war is counted in the billions of dollars annually, while the social costs include high crime rates, an erosion of American civil rights, and the subordination of other foreign policy concerns to drug eradication policies.

Economic Costs

The drug war consumes in excess of $10 billion tax dollars annually and removes an additional $80 billion from the economy (Ostrowski 10). This figure is the amount that is spent on illegal drugs at their artificially inflated prices. If the drugs were legal, they would cost considerably less and the money could then be spent on other goods—or saved. The former vice chairman of the New York County Lawyers Association Committee on Law Reform, James Ostrowski reports that, “. . . prohibition takes $10 billion from taxpayers and uses it to raise $80 billion for organized crime and drug dealers, impoverishing many drug users in the process” (10).

One component of this economic loss is at the industrial level. In 2003, the total losses of anhydrous ammonia, a component in the manufacture of illegal methamphetamines, to Norfolk, Virginia based farm chemical distributor Royster-Clark Corporation alone amounted to approximately $1.15 million. The figure doesn’t even include damage to tanks and valves (Shean), nor does it consider the environmental impact of the ammonia that escapes into the air. Keep in mind that this is a single company.

Often, proponents of the drug war cite a 1984 Research Triangle Institute study to lend validity to their argument on the costs of drugs, but the $60 billion figure from the study should more correctly be applied to the costs of the drug war than to the cost of drug use (Ostrowski 7). This is because many of the costs noted in the study simply would not exist in the face of legalized drugs.

Social Costs

As if the economic costs of the drug prohibition weren’t bad enough, the social costs are even worse. In much the same way that supposed drug related monetary costs are actually prohibition related, crime that is usually associated with drugs is actually related to the prohibition. Similar crime could be found during the alcohol Prohibition of the 1920’s. Ostrowski connects them nicely:

By now, there can be little doubt that most, if not all, “drug-related murders” are the result of drug prohibition. The same type of violence came with the Eighteenth Amendment ban of alcohol in 1920. The murder rate rose with the start of Prohibition, remained high during Prohibition, and then declined for 11 consecutive years when Prohibition ended. . . . assaults with a firearm rose with Prohibition and declined for 10 consecutive years after Prohibition. (1)

It isn’t difficult to see the parallels between the gang warfare of Prohibition fame and the street gangs of today.

The prices of black market heroin and cocaine are roughly 100 times greater than they would be if these substances were legal (Ostrowski 7). This can easily be verified by comparing the price of prescription morphine to that of illegal heroin. Because of these inflated prices, addicts often turn to committing theft, murder, and assault to obtain the money for their purchases. This obviously increases theft, murder, and assault rates.

Other prohibition related violence can be found among the suppliers who murder to eliminate competition, to get rid of informers, and to punish suspected informers (Ostrowski 8).

Social costs can also be found in the numerous foreign nations that have become puppets of our drug prohibition. For example, it is our drug war that led to the birth of cartels and their associated terrorism (Carpenter 6). Now the drug war dominates our policies in Afghanistan and overshadows our war on terror, and similar results are starting to emerge. Afghan farmers are starting to question if they are not better of with the Taliban than with the Americans who bulldoze their number one cash crop, the opium poppy (Carpenter 2).

To make things even worse internationally, environmental and health damage is caused by widespread spraying of herbicides. After classrooms in Columbia were sprayed, one local schoolteacher said that “. . . [Americans] sprayed the coca but they also killed all our food crops.” Students at the school complained of health problems including skin rashes and vomiting (Willard). This is reminiscent of the Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War.

Civil Rights

Perhaps the worst effect of the drug war is the erosion of American civil rights. Freedoms we have long taken for granted are quickly becoming a thing of the past. In January 2005, The Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement officers can use drug dogs in any routine traffic stop even if the officer doesn’t have cause to suspect the presence of drugs (Greenburg). This decision flies in the face of our 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable searches. It makes one wonder whether cause-less searches of our homes by drug dogs is far behind. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed in her dissension saying, “Under today’s decision, every traffic stop could become an occasion to call in the dogs, to the distress and embarrassment of the law-abiding population.”

Urinalysis testing, warrant-less and random roadside checks, strip-searches, preventive detention, and property forfeiture laws have all become routine tools used in the drug war (Greenburg). Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would be spinning in their graves if they could see these erosions of basic liberties.

Ostensibly, the primary purpose of the War on Drugs is to help the users and addicts. However, they are the ones hit hardest and are most subject to a loss of life, liberty, and property. According to Ostrowski, almost 80% of deaths related to illegal drugs each year are quality-related rather than crime related (9). This is because illegal drugs are manufactured with no quality controls, much like the bathtub gin of Prohibition. If methamphetamine pills had the name Pfizer, Bayer, or GlaxoSmithKline imprinted on them, there would arguably be fewer deaths resulting from their use. Furthermore, if there were problems stemming from their use, the user would have legal recourse in the form of a product liability claim.

Addicts often reuse needles which may be contaminated with HIV or hepatitis. If drugs were not contraband, clean needles would be more readily available and these diseases would be less prevalent.

After more than 80 years, the lessons should be clear that some people seem to want to use drugs. It should be clear that no amount of enforcement is going to lessen the demand. It should be clear that the only results of this massive money pit are disrespect for law and erosion of liberty. It is time stop dumping our tax dollars into a problem that not only can’t be fixed, but that gets worse when we try to fix it.

End The Drug War Works Cited