I don’t discuss drug policy since I don’t know much about it and also because I am a little conflicted about soft drugs like marijuana. The drug war is probably a bad idea in my opinion, but I don’t agree with my libertarian friends that making drugs legal would be an improvement. Free markets and capitalism can make big business out of marijuana use. That’s why I like Mark Kleiman’s posts on drug policy. Here is an excerpt from one of his recent posts:
If marijuana proved to be a substitute for, rather than a complement to, alcohol (the studies conflict) then making it legal would probably reduce crime and accidents. Legalizing it would also reduce the population behind bars by about 60,000, or 3%. Legal cannabis would eliminate a $10 billion per year illicit market, which even if its contribution to terrorism is negligible is still a noticeable social headache, and get several million people whose only current criminal activity is using pot back on the right side of the law: not a negligible benefit, in my estimation.
But if that meant that the current population of 2 to 3 million wake-and-bake potheads tripled, I’m not sure that would be a good trade. And legalization on anything like the alcohol model could easily lead to such an increase. Just think what the people who have convinced so many American kids to smoke tobacco cigarettes and drink beer could do if given free rein to market what in some ways is a much more attractive product. A legal cannabis industry, like most industries, would be heavily dependent on its steady, high-volume customers: the frequent flyers. (In the case of alcohol, 50% of the total industry volume goes to people who average four drinks a day, year-round, or more.) That means that a legal pot industry would be in the business of creating and sustaining potheads. The free market is a wonderful thing, but you don’t want it working against you in a situation like that.
If I got to make the laws, I think I’d make selling cannabis, or trading it for anything of value, a crime, but legalize growing your own, using it, or giving it away. That wouldn’t eliminate sales activity entirely, but it would eliminate mass-marketing. Yes, I can think of a bunch of objections to a “Grow your own” policy, but it may still be the least bad of our options.
Mark is a Professor of Public Policy at UCLA and is an expert on drug policy.
