The Cost of The War On Drugs

After a few decades of the War on Drugs, it would appear that little progress is being made on eradicating these products. Why is that? Well, when there is demand for a product (IE drugs) then someone (or some group) steps in to meet that market need. If government outlaws the product (prohibition) then it goes underground to the black market. This results in plenty of violence

There have been several news article of prominence lately as it relates to the War on Drugs. Several of those article are about how overzealous, local law enforcement is using SWAT teams to storm innocent people's homes and cause all kinds of damage. One case recently involved the mayor of a small town where SWAT teams killed his two dogs. No drugs (at least that were theirs). From AP.

Reason.tv has a video where the former Police Chief of Seattle declares the War on Drugs a complete failure. They have chosen to stop enforcing many of the anti-drug laws.

Now today, the WSJ has a column about how the War on Drugs is making Mexico an incredibly violent country. This makes it hard for one of our closest allies to maintain law and order.

The War on Drugs is a political boondoggle. It has created a huge Federal bureaucracy that spends billions of tax payer dollars. When the programs fail, it is always because there is not enough money to fight the war properly. So budgets get increased only to follow the same cycle of not enough money next year. Failure like this in the free market results in bankruptcy.

There was a lot of violence in the 1920's due to alcohol prohibition. Today, very few (if any) people lose their life as the result of trafficking in alcohol. Why? Because it is a legal activity that is heavily taxed and regulated by the government.

We could eliminate all this madness my simply making drugs legal. Taxing them and regulating them will actually put money in the Federal Treasury instead of costing all of us billions for no results. It will also keep many non-violent people out of our over-crowed prison system, again saving tax payers billions.

Now I think illegal narcotics and drugs are a terrible thing. However, people should have the right to control what substance they put in their own bodies. It is their decision to pursue a life of destruction. The nanny state cannot dictate "proper" behavior as we can clearly see in the War on Drugs.

The old saying goes that if you want less of something you should tax it. That simple concept can reduce the costs associated with drugs and make all of us better off in the long run.