On the War on Drugs

What is the point of prison? This is an essential question to be asked when evaluating the cost of the war on drugs. The war on drugs as many have begun to realize has been a spectacular failure. We have had two major lessons, first, drug use is a health issue, not a criminal one. We do not treat alcoholism as a crime so why should we treat heroin addiction any differently? Second, drug markets are incredibly inelastic, even when suppliers are cracked down on the demand is simply met another way with an increased price. There is no excuse to continue, especially as the new Biden administration comes into office championing progress as one of its goals. What better way to unify the nation than to unify families that have been torn apart due to minor drug offenses?

To explain why drug addiction is a health, not criminal, issue we should turn to Portugal. During the 80’s and 90’s they had a major health epidemic. Addiction was through the roof and other countries suffering similar issues did not seem to have any answers. Enter stage left João Goulão, “then a young doctor in The Algarve, in southern Portugal, found an increasing number of his patients were coming to him with problems related to drug addiction. ‘I wasn’t a specialist in drugs,’ he says, ‘but I was available whenever people came to me.’ Like other community doctors around the country at the time, he accidentally became an expert in treating drug addiction.” His importance cannot be understated. Moving from a syringe exchange program expansion in 1993 and building up into legislative reform in 2001 the program was a stunning success. 

Currently in Portugal if a person is found to have any drugs on them in low enough amounts that it seems they are using them personally they are simply taken to a center where, “they talk about the health implications of drugs and note drug use is still illegal. He is then free to go, with the message that if he ever needs help, he can contact them.” Portugal also has addiction rates much lower than many other EU countries which, “have rates that are double and triple the rate for postdecriminalization Portugal.” 

The inelasticity of drugs is incredibly simple. Think of fuel, if the price goes up, even by a dollar or two, you will still likely continue to buy fuel for your car because you can’t do anything without it. The infrastructure simply isn’t there to allow alternatives. The same is true for drugs, physical addiction can be debilitating. Leaving the worst off unable to do much more than simply be forced into a sisyphean task of scrounging up cash to buy more drugs only to need even more next time. If you cannot find a way to kick the addiction then you are forced to simply put up with price increases whenever something changes and the supply chain is disrupted. The prohibition on drugs also leads to an increase in the overall dangerousness of using drugs, “When drugs are sold on the black market, there can be no name brand attached to them. Thus, when a dealer sells a bad dose, he does not damage the reputation of a supply chain nearly as much as when, say, Tylenol sells a bad dose. Moreover, consumers cannot sue drug suppliers for producing dangerous products. In a legal market, drug suppliers would be pressured to supply quality products and would face economic and legal consequences if they did not.” Even accepting the idea that a prohibition on drugs helps society by decreasing the reach, it must be understood that this is simply another way it negatively impacts users. By forcing them out of society’s reach and away from any legal or medical help it becomes exponentially harder to become better. This all ends up leading to more overdoses, less understanding, and less empathy. 

What then, is to be done? We should circle back to the beginning, we need to ask ourselves what is the point of prison. What are we trying to do here. A half commitment to rehabilitation without proper resources is bound to fail, a formalized policy of rehabilitation, with clear backing by the government and the people will not. If we can all take one clear step in the direction of rehabilitation and end the war on drugs hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved in the process.