Cross-Posted from PolicyInsight.org
It’s ironic that corn sells for eight cents a pound and heroin fetches $60,000 for the same quantity, considering that the U.S. government spends billions of dollars to help farmers and to fight the drug trade.
It’s too simplistic to say we could save the farmers by putting them under the Drug Enforcement Administration and wipe out the drug dealers by asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to try to support them. But there is a nugget of truth in the paradox.
Every cent of that $60,000 a pound for heroin comes from the end users. Presumably, some of them are high-flying professionals who can support a $150-a-day habit through legitimate earnings. But many of them are unemployable, feeding their habit through crime, or robbing their families of the necessities of life.
The high price of heroin is entirely supported by the efforts of government – burning fields, flying around in helicopter gunships, interdicting shipments, etc. Playing the role of the predator in a Darwinian contest, the feds weed out the weak or unlucky, leading to higher profits for the truly ruthless and efficient traffickers. The more we expand the War on Drugs, estimated at a cost of $10 billion to $20 billion per year, the more the successful cartels are rewarded.
If the price of the poison could be pushed toward the eight cents a pound the wholesale market allocates to life-sustaining food, all the profit would be taken out of the criminal enterprises.
Legalizing drugs is not politically possible, and is going too far anyway. It would be a wrong to have a policy that would allow people to sell drugs to children.
But registering the addicts is a possibility. If an addict would go to a doctor and be diagnosed as heroin dependent, the physician could write a prescription. The script would allow the addict to go to the pharmacy every day and pick up a one-day supply. The addict should have a modest co-pay, perhaps one dollar. While he is there, he may as well get a clean disposable syringe.
With only a one-day supply, the addict would not be tempted to sell or share his drugs. With no need for cash to feed his habit, the addict would not bother with crime.
As large numbers of addicts joined the program, illegal heroin would become a glut on the market. Prices would fall sharply, and would approach the $1 a day level set by the government co-pay. A crew of five wouldn’t spend the whole day on a street corner if the proceeds were less than the minimum wage. There would be no economic incentive for pushers to try to create new addicts.
Needing less product, the street-level dealers would buy less from the traffickers, and could afford to pay the wholesalers only a fraction of the current price. Cartels would begin to go out of business.
This change in policy would affect the entire supply chain, going all the way back to the farmers in Afghanistan. Instead of fighting them and destroying their crops, the U.S. would do better to encourage them. The more supply, the less profit for the criminal enterprises.
Billions spent on the "War on Drugs" could be spent on treatment for those who wanted to give up the habit.
Penalties for pushing drugs, especially to children, would remain high. With no profit in creating addicts, drug pushers would find new ways to support themselves. Hopefully, some would be legitimate.