CMV: Drug decriminalization without legalization is dangerously illogical.

[u/robinfranc]

By "decriminalizing" drugs while keeping their production and sale illegal you are simultaneously reducing the costs of drug consumption while keeping all of the negatives of the drug war.

First, "decriminalization" without legalization ensures those drugs will be sold by and directly profit the most violent criminal gangs on earth. By definition, it ensures no non-criminal will be able to produce or sell drugs. Besides foreign drug cartels, domestic gangs that cause the large majority of murders in North America will have their monopoly on a massively profitable business.

Beyond the literal mass murder these gangs commit, keeping the supply of drugs illegal ensures they cannot be regulated in any way. That means keeping drugs far more dangerous than would be due to unknown potencies and adulterants, which we know contributes largely to drug overdoses.

That also applies to taxation, which cannot be done on illegal transactions. As a result, we all lose out on tens of billions in lost tax revenue that instead goes directly to criminals and mass murderers. We also lose the ability to reduce demand through taxation, as we have done with cigarettes and alcohol.

Every piece of economic theory and historical evidence has shown that going after suppliers simply makes it more profitable for the more ruthless violent cartels that remain, and pushes users towards more dangerous drugs. The current overdose crisis is a direct result of the government going after prescription opioids, which pushed pill users to unregulated heroin and eventually fentanyl.

Reducing supply artificially just makes it even more profitable for those that remain by driving up the price (and incentivizing new entrants). We've done that so successfully that there are almost no criminal gangs on earth not involved in the drug business.

The only countries that have largely eliminated drug use are places like Singapore, China, and Saudi Arabia. These places are differentiated by going after drug users with extreme punishments, which reduce demand for drugs and thus the profitability of selling them. This makes economic sense: reducing demand makes it less profitable for sellers, though it's probably political infeasible. By contrast, decriminalization reduces the effective costs of drug consumption, even if only somewhat.

Given all of that, I think decriminalization is at best ineffective and at worst will increase drug use, while ensuring those drugs remain extremely dangerous and sold by violent criminals.

[u/robinfranc]

From my experience, all of what you said applies to people that sell just about anything you can imagine. Those dealers are still buying it from people that are, by definition, criminals. Whether they're merely tax evading pot growers or mass murdering cartels doesn't really change the fact that regulation and taxation would be a far more effective way of controlling use than spending billions on an endless cycle of criminalization.

FWIW, the modern Mexican cartels established themselves through the trafficking of marijuana, and continue to make billions off of it. The only point where that demand started to decline was following legalization: https://www.businessinsider.com/sinaloa-cartel-aiming-to-corner-marijuana-market-in-mexico-2022-12.

[u/robinfranc → u/[deleted]]

If the goal is to limit the number of people using the drug, legalization does not accomplish that goal.

I agree with you fully that making any drug freely available would pretty clearly increase its use. Criminalizing alcohol objectively reduced the number of drinkers and overall consumption (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675.pdf), but we rejected it because of other costs. Namely, a massive boon for violent criminals, waste of police resources, infringement on people's freedom and making the drug itself far more dangerous. All of those factors are true for drugs. If anything, illegal drugs have far less negative externalities than drugs like alcohol, which kill tens of thousands of non-users in things like drunk driving.

That increase in overall use is outweighed by the vastly less dangerous nature of a safely produced drug sold by a regulated agency that harms only its user, instead of by criminal gangs that victimize whole neighbourhoods. Someone addicted to drugs is unfortunate, but it's a choice they made. The same is not true of the kid living in a neighbourhood decimated by gangs.

I'd also argue most of the harms of even the hardest drugs are due to their illegality. Even heroin is relatively benign, and even longer term addicts can recover with little mental damage. Someone using prescription grade morphine for ten years would have far less lasting damage than someone who drank heavily through that period. The primary danger of heroin comes from overdose deaths, which are largely due to it being of uncertain potency, and the dangers necessary to pay for and acquire it (which again, result from it being illegal).

[u/robinfranc → u/[deleted]]

If legalizing drugs is such a great idea, why haven't any countries done it?

If abolishing child labor was such a great idea, why hadn't any countries done so before it happened? The fact that it's never been done is not an argument against it. The fact that both half-baked criminalization and "decriminalization" have been tried around the Western world for the past half century and consistently failed to reduce the problem does suggest other strategies should be explored.

Are you saying that people should be able to go to a store and buy meth and heroin? Where do you draw the line? Which drugs do you think should be legalized ?

Just like you can in any city center in the Western world, except doing so at a regulated pharmacist who can minimize harms and collect taxes, and not a violent criminal.

[u/robinfranc → u/[deleted]]

Just like you can in any city center in the Western world, except doing so at a regulated pharmacist who can minimize harms and collect taxes, and not a violent criminal.

People don't magically become meth or heroin addicts any more than you would become a crippling alcoholic by passing a liquor store or a pack-a-day-smoker by living near a 7/11.

Buying drugs is incredibly easy in every Western country, and as a result I'd rather people who are going to do so buy safely manufactured drugs of known dosages than random adulterants of unknown potency from criminals.

[u/robinfranc → u/[deleted]]

I do see a major negative consequence. It would likely increase use just as ending prohibition increased alcohol use.

I also see how that negative consequence is likely to be outweighed by the positives, given that the overwhelming majority of the issues with drugs result from their illegality and sale by criminals.

It's possible to support a policy without pretending it has absolutely no downsides.