Time to End the Failed War

Mexico is in the midst of a violent internal war which has claimed thousands of lives. A million American citizens are locked in jail every year for committing crimes that harmed no one. Civil liberties are under constant assault by increasingly-militarized police forces. Urban gang violence tears at our social fabric and destroys countless lives. What is the connection between these tragic, disparate facts? The War on Drugs, a policy so destructive to American society that estimating its true costs is nearly impossible.

When Richard Nixon announced the beginning of the War on Drugs in 1969, he could not have predicted that as a result of his program, the United States would eventually incarcerate a larger proportion of its population than any other nation on earth. When Congress penned the first drug prohibition laws, they were unaware that they were creating a multi-billion dollar black market that would hugely empower criminals and breed violence.

Those who started this War meant only to prevent addiction and abuse of the substances they viewed as dangerous to society. Unfortunately, the actual results of the War were much more far-reaching and far less benign.

Those who started the War greatly misunderstood the effects of most drugs, the nature of addiction, and the economic incentives they were creating. Marijuana was famously said to produce a state of violent psychosis which threatened the safety of respectable citizens. It was thought that addiction, a moral failing, would disappear if only the addict's favored drug was legally made unavailable. Most tragically, the War's instigators ignored the lessons of alcohol prohibition, which had greatly empowered the Mafia, and thought that they could overpower the economic incentives to supply drugs.

Modern urban gangs as we know them are entirely the product of the War on Drugs. Virtually every gang in the United States -- from the Bloods and Crips to the Hell's Angels -- is primarily in the business of drugs. Without the black market in drugs, the vast majority of gangs would go totally out of business, and those who survived would lose their primary source of income and power.

With even the most basic understanding of economics, it is easy to see that it is fundamentally impossible to eradicate the black market for drugs. Criminalization drastically increases the cost of drugs, and therefore the profits of drug dealing. As long as there are people willing to break the law to make large profits, the drug business will thrive. Since these profits are accompanied by great risk, and because drug transactions must necessarily take place outside the protection of the law, violent and criminally-inclined "entrepreneurs" naturally take over.

The common perception that drug dealers are violent criminals, while technically correct, is thus seen as somewhat backwards. In reality, illegal drugs do not make people violent. Violent people make (and sell) illegal drugs, simply because they are illegal. Similarly, drug users are driven to prostitution, theft, and other criminal behaviors by the inflated price of illegal drugs, not by the drugs themselves.

Police tout massive seizures of drugs as evidence that they are making progress in the War. In reality, those seizures have little effect on the availability of drugs. When they do have an effect, it is only to increase the price of drugs, which increases the incentive for dealers to supply more. For every drug dealer that is arrested, there are two others waiting anxiously for their chance to profit from the drug trade.

Ironically, the more police do to keep drugs off the streets, the more profitable the trade becomes and the greater the incentives. The result is a system in which police crackdowns, no matter how intense, are incapable of causing substantial harm to the drug trade as a whole. The evidence of this is clear -- after decades of police efforts and billions of dollars in funding, drugs are cheaper, easier to obtain, and stronger than ever before.

What the War on Drugs has achieved is a steady violation of our freedoms, as police forces come to view everyone as a potential criminal. Whereas police once primarily protected Americans from violent criminals, they now hunt down nonviolent, productive citizens whose only crime is eating, drinking, or smoking a prohibited substance in the privacy of their own home.

Right now, the most troubling unintended consequence of the War on Drugs is the plague of violence in Mexico. Empowered and enriched by the profits of the drug trade, massive Mexican cartels are fighting each other and the Mexican government in an all-out war. Amazingly, the cartels' soldiers, armed with military-grade weapons and numbering over 100,000, pose a serious threat to the existence of the Mexican government. That is to say, the criminalization of drugs has created a black market so massive and profitable that these drug suppliers may be able to defeat a national government.

The conflict in Mexico has predictably produced from Washington only calls to intensify the War on Drugs. Politicians point to the violence as evidence of the great evils of the drugs that they have criminalized. Of course, there are no tequila cartels threatening the Mexican government, nor are there cigarette suppliers storming police stations with rocket launchers. It is not the drugs that cause the violence, but the criminal black market created by prohibition.

If the War on Drugs was finally ended the benefits to society would be overwhelming. The entire black market in drugs that breeds violence and enriches criminals would disappear. From America's cities to Mexico and beyond, gangs would lose power and wealth. With no more drug-funded gangs and shady drug transactions, murder and assault rates would go down. Cheaper, safer drugs would mean less prostitution, less disease, and less theft.

Nonviolent drug offenders would no longer fill our jails, and the billions of dollars spent every year on drug enforcement could be put to good use elsewhere. The militarization of our police forces would become unnecessary, and our freedoms would be largely restored. Drug production could be regulated for safety and even taxed. Tax revenue from drugs could pay for rehabilitation and addiction treatment programs, drug education programs for youth, and more.

As the recession deepens and unemployment increases, crime will likely increase in America's cities. The epidemics of drug-related crime and gang violence seen in the 1970s and '80s could even reappear. We have a chance now to prevent much of this violence, to deal a serious blow to gangs and violent criminals, and to create a freer and safer society. The War on Drugs is a complete failure. It has created far more problems than it has solved, and hurt millions of people. It is time for us to let go of the silly notion that this War is protecting anyone, and learn from our mistakes. It is time to end the War.