Drug Problems

Society's Drug Policies

Introduction

In the world today there are many policies and ways to deal with the use and abuse of illegal drugs. The abuse of drugs alone has been shown to cause negative economic, social, and mental problems in society. This negative externality is a problem in almost every society but each society has developed different ways of approaching this issue. In this portfolio, I will review two different views that policy makers adhere to and debate about when trying to create the best policy for the societies they govern. The black market of illegal drug use may be the issue at hand and by eliminating this market we will be doing lots to reduce our drug abuse problem. We will look at the "supply side" of this issue which focuses on attacking the distributors and the ones behind supplying illegal drugs to the people. This is the policy that is being executed in most countries at this time though there is much evidence that shows we might start looking for alternative methods of lowering illegal drug use. This brings us to focusing on the "demand side" of the market. The theory behind this idea is that by eliminating the demand, the supply will no longer exist or at least be reduced. This entails spending less on the pursuit and incarceration of drug dealers while spending more on rehabilitation, education and prevention programs for drug users. It also entails legalizing some illegal drugs to help control the dark underworld of the black market.

My Concern

My concern with this issue stems largely from the fact that I am an American citizen studying in the UK for the semester. I am learning so much about different economies in relation to the American economy which has given me a new perspective of sorts; I'm finding myself more critical of my government's policies for this reason. As you may know, the US policy known as the "The War on Drugs" is costing the American citizens billions every year to execute this so called "War". Federal Spending on drug control in the US in 2002 totaled $18.822 Billion; over half of which was spent on domestic law enforcement. The current policies are costing my country billions of dollars in American tax dollars to keep non-violent criminals incarcerated. For this reason, we have more citizens in prison "per capita" then any other industrialized country in the world. These "drug offenders" are being housed with hard core violent criminals (thieves, rapists, felons and murderers) and are subjected to horrendous physical and sexual abuse. Something needs to be done.

Supply-side perspective

This side of the fence argues that if we eliminate the supply of drugs and make the penalties for distributing drugs and using drugs extremely high through fines, arrest and imprisonment, then dealers would stop selling and users would quit buying since the cost would far exceed the benefit. Of course, this thinking is based on the premise that people with drug problems are rational people but in a drug dependent state, they may not be able to think consistently in a logical manner. Instilling this fear of fines and imprisonment has been shown to be sometimes successful on a microeconomic level, but if we look at the macroeconomic side we may see things much differently.

For instance, there have been some studies that show that incarcerated drug users are not contributing to the market for the time they are incarcerated. They also have increased resources to get access to rehabilitation programs