Not many topics are considered political suicide like advocating hard drug legalisation, because “drugs are bad”. Despite this, the war on drugs always has been and always will be a complete and abject failure. In fact society is changing in ways that make such an attitude even more archaic than it always has been, but there is a real opportunity to turn the drug trade into a net positive for our society. There will always be horrible stories of addiction and overdose, but sadly these happen in spite of prohibition. If we must put up with such things, we should at least maximise any upside the drug trade offers.
This article is specifically about such drugs as marijuana, cocaine and MDMA. It is not about meth-amphetamine or heroine, which are highly addictive and therefore pose different problems.
Let's look at this issue in a calm and rational way. Drugs can most certainly be bad, because used to excess they can cause physical and psychological problems. Depression, anxiety, aggression, not to mention physical symptoms, loss of employment, crime, relationship breakdown, death and even yellow teeth are all possible consequences of excessive drug use. Huge swathes of research, showing the shocking impact of drugs on the medical and justice systems, are publicly available.
The reason we know so much about the impact of drugs is because, even though their production, distribution has always been illegal, huge numbers of people produce, sell and consume them anyway. It's harder to get a gram of cocaine than a snickers bar, but it's still not that hard to get a gram of cocaine. Anywhere on earth.
Drugs are bad because they hurt people. So do a lot of other things. In 1970 the road toll was 3798, a huge number! But cars aren't bad. Measures were taken to improve their safety. The road toll in Australia in 2013 was 1193-an incredible improvement. Compare that to the total number of cocaine related deaths in 2009 which was...23. Yep. Hospital stays that were primarily cocaine related were under 300 for the full year of 2009, a tiny number. The number for marijuana is even lower. This is from the National Illicit Drug Indicators Project, which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.
Cars are useful for transport, I hear you say, so let's look at something that is far less useful for transport but still legal, for example high performance motorcycles. As a 22 year old I walked into a motorcycle dealer and walked out 20 minutes later on my first superbike-a 2002 Yamaha R1. What a beautiful machine. It had 150hp and went from 0-200km/h in around 8 seconds. Everyone agrees this is a dangerous activity with a high risk of harm. And that is why my annual insurance bill was roughly a third the entire value of the bike. The insurance company had priced in the negative externalities associated with an overconfident 22 year old male on a bike far in excess of his capabilities. But bikes are legal (thankfully), even though they are clearly, potentially very bad for your health. But we ride them because it's fun.
What about alcohol? Cigarettes? The Australian Institute of Health and Ageing estimates the cost to Australia of smoking in 2004-5 at $31.5bn. Alcohol? $15.3bn. That's a fair chunk of GDP.
Both kill huge numbers of people and have an incredible cost to society. If harm minimisation is the goal, we should certainly ban both of those drugs.
The social cost of illicit drugs in the same period? $8.2bn. A solid of chunk of that was crime related-which would largely turn into legitimate profit, tax revenue and business investment if drugs were legalised.
What about sugar? It's natural...But so is tobacco, marijuana and cocaine. Overconsumption of sugar is turning millions of us into fat, diabetic, blood sucking parasites on the health system. Sugar ruins lives, and has a debilitating impact on quality of life and wellbeing. We're the fattest nation on earth. Why not ban sugar? Seriously-if harm minimisation really is a genuine goal, we should ban, or at least heavily tax, sugar...but it'll never happen.
Let's be honest. Drugs are not illegal because they're bad for you. It's not about harm minimisation. Too many legal things can kill you just as fast as various illegal drugs for that to be the case. That argument is so easy to pick apart, the only reason it still exists is because it gives advocates of prohibition a nice moral soapbox to stand on: “We're doing it to protect people!”
What would happen if drugs, by which I mean cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana in particular, were brought into the fold? What if you could walk into a pharmacy and buy these items, at current prices, sourced from a government approved production facility? They’d instantly be less cool, which would dissuade at least some people from using them.
But let’s look at the numbers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates Australians spend $7 billion a year on illegal drugs. First of all, instead of $7bn a year going to criminals, dealers, organised crime syndicates and other unsavoury types, that same amount would go to legitimate businesses. The pharmacist would make more profit, the drug grower/manufacturer/importer would make a profit, and like all companies (except Apple, Google and the big miners) these businesses would pay the company tax on any profits-currently 30%.
Associated costs to society, particularly crime, corruption (the undermining of our police force and justice system is a crucial associated cost) are another huge component of the drug problem. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates crime costs Australia $36 billion a year-of which 9% are drug offences. Burglary, assault, homicide, and theft between them are another 32% of crime. A large portion of these could certainly be traced back to drug related activity-for example gangs enforcing territorial claims or addicts stealing to pay for habits.
So, very roughly, we have $7bn spent on drugs and, almost certainly, many billions more down the drain on drug related crime, police action and costs to the justice system. Let’s not add estimates for the health costs for drug use because legalising drugs won't make that number disappear-arguably it may actually rise, but certainly not by as much as legalising drugs will make the other costs reduce. And at least we'll have internalised the health costs-drug users will be paying large chunks of tax which could go straight into the health system.
One reason politicians and police can't give up the war on drugs is because so many jobs depend on waging it. Legalisation of drugs could cut out the majority of the $1bn+ a year we spend on drug enforcement-police, surveillance and etc. Now the drug police themselves think this is a bad idea, because they'd have to get other jobs (pharmacists perhaps?). But we could spend that $1bn reducing the budget crisis, planting trees, or turning back the boats-there's plenty of policies out there that need funding.
Cocaine sells for $300/gram in Sydney. It's produced in Colombia for around US$3/gram. It goes up in price 100 times by the time it lands in your stockbrokers wallet in Sydney. With margins like that, cartels will never, ever stop getting it into Australia. The same principle, if not numbers, applies to heroine, ecstasy, and to a lesser extent (because we can make it ourselves) marijuana. Who are the cartels? The most violent, ruthless gangs in the world. Close to 15,000 drug related murders occurred in Mexico in 2013. And our prohibition on drugs is making it irresistible for them to do business on our shores. We're literally the most profitable market on earth for cocaine-the cartels love Australia!
In fact, the war on drugs clashes head on with high-school level economic theory: that restricting supply of a desired good will only increase that goods’ price-therefore incentivising people to supply it. And like it or not, drugs are desired goods. And since Australia is one of the richest nations on earth, we have relatively inelastic demand for drugs. It's why the cartels are moving in.
Why hasn't Treasury explained this to their friends across the hall in the Department of Police and Justice...could it be that the message doesn't want to be heard?
Let's not pretend that with legalisation all criminal elements will simply evaporate. But the drug import and distribution part of their operations will largely disappear, which would be a blow to their funding and operations-and their relevance.
So-billions saved not having to police and enforce drug crime, and billions in tax revenue flowing into government coffers. Better schools, better roads, better healthcare. Less crime. Standard fare for most election campaigns, so it's strange that there isn't a rational debate on the subject.
The consequences of our war on drugs were demonstrated in 2005 by Dr John Quigley, from the Queensland University of Technology. As we all know, cannabis use by baby boomers went up during the swinging sixties. Smoking marijuana tore at the moral fabric of society, fuelling as it did orgies of anarchy, independent thought and free love. Parents of baby boomers fought back, and thus began the war on drugs, initiated by Richard Nixon in the US and quickly spreading to Australia. Quigley’s study found that in the 1970's, when cannabis was heavily policed for the first time, prices spiked, criminal gangs took over supply, and because supply of dope was restricted, demand for easily available alternatives, particularly heroine, increased dramatically.
As Quigley points out:
“This seems to be the pattern of prohibition: a police crackdown causes a temporary disruption of supply; lack of supply forces up price, increasing the value of the market and enticing more ruthless and organised criminals to take over. In this way, drug law enforcement acts as a multiplier for the drug market, while ensuring that control of the drug market goes to the most ruthless and “protected” members of organised crime...”
People in charge need to accept that some people will always push boundaries. It's human nature. It's why Captain Cook sailed round the world and discovered Australia, and why Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Unfortunately, it's also why people like to take illegal drugs-it makes them forget their problems, or enjoy the party a bit more, or feel like a superhero for a few hours.
I don't advocate drug consumption, but taking drugs is probably no worse than opposing something just because it's always been that way. For all sorts of “valid” reasons, women couldn't vote 110 years ago. Seems pretty stupid now doesn't it?
People are going to take drugs no matter what, so here's what should happen:
1) We should regulate drug quality and distribution.
2) We should provide realistic, factual education to everyone but especially high risk groups-for example teenagers-on the negative and positive effects of drugs on physical/mental health, behaviour and long term use.
3) We should set up comprehensive drug treatment programs, that aim to resolve not only damaging drug use, but also fix the underlying causes (e.g. depression, anxiety, mental illness etc)
4) Finally, we should internalise the profits and minimise the criminal element by turning the drug trade into legitimate business and taxing the hell out of it.
So, all you politicians out there…any takers?
----Next time, we'll look at where drugs come from, because ethically sourcing drugs may be even harder than convincing society to change. We’ll also look at new phenomena like online ordering and how it's a) completely eluding enforcement and b) gentrifying the drug trade. We'll also analyse whether legalisation leads to increased consumption, and more relevantly, to higher levels of drug related harm.-because that is a primary argument against legalisation.----