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Drug Legalization, Harm Reduction, and Drug Policy
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
TO THE EDITOR:
The drug legalization debate, addressed by DuPont and Voth [1] diverts attention from the need to fix prohibition's worst (but fixable) fault—its drug and crime subsidy. The latter is the difference between the real economic value of drugs and the scarcity-inflated market price.
By official estimates, U.S. drug sales in 1993 totaled $49 billion. Black-market drug prices are estimated to range from 70 to 140 times the true economic value [2]. If the real worth of drugs sold was one seventieth of the market price, then current policy caused U.S. drug users to pay $49 billion for drugs worth only $700 million. The difference between the price paid and the real value is $48.3 billion. Prohibition's drug and crime subsidy supports gangs and gangsterism, drug running, and corruption of the criminal justice system, and it motivates the seduction of new drug users.
How can this situation be fixed? Because addicts are estimated to consume 80% of illegal drugs, we could eliminate 80% of the drug and crime subsidy by treating addiction as a disease rather than as a crime and by providing treatment that is acceptable to addicts. Instead, prohibitionist policies exclude most addicts from treatment with long waiting lists, with arbitrarily high admission thresholds, by punishing relapse with expulsion from therapy, and with treatment regimens many addicts find worse than the disease. Prohibition leaves untreated addicts as captured clients of the drug merchants.
Sweden prohibits private commerce in alcohol but avoids criminogenic effects: A state monopoly supplies existing demand, thus preventing black-market sales and the creation of demand. Swedish indices of alcohol-related pathologies rank among the lowest [3].
The Swedish precedent suggests that we could eliminate the remaining 20% of the drug and crime subsidy with a state monopoly that would supply recreational drug users. Harm from adulterated black market drugs would be eliminated, the drug syndicates would be out of business, and the economic incentive to seduce new drug users would be curtailed [4].
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
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