Legalization: Who would win? Who would lose?
Borden, David
Often, divergent intellectual pathways can lead to similar conclusions, and drug policy reform is an excellent example of this. There may be no other issue that draws together such diverse...
...But on the other end, drug use, while on the drug trade not universally evil as many believe, does indeed source of employ cause serious harm to some...
...44DRUG ECONOMIES OF THE AMERICAS Miron wasn't advocating that people use drugs- disorder, particul nor that they don't-but merely explaining a concept conditions drive a to help others think through the issue more clearly...
...But for many in our form for their only source nation's poorest neighbor- of employment...
...Drug trade participants understand this...
...Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Boston University and a true, free-market libertarian...
...In a journal article published a short time later, Miron discussed drug prohibition and its economics, in which he pointed out among other things-in contrast with the prevailing view of drug use as a drain on society-that in strict economic terms, money spent by consumers on drugs is a benefit, not a cost...
...d reduce the violence and open up es for economic development, better pointed out a problem given where *e numbers of people are dependent Sin its current form for their only nent...
...Several years ago, I was part of a team that helped organize the drug policy track for a justice reform conference held in Springfield, a mid-size city in western Massachusetts...
...It turned out that for all the pathologies But if drug sales, associated with the illicit, open-air drug trade the ers, play that im influx of people and cash that it brought was a corner- they deserve to be stone of the local economy, without which the rest by government an would become unsustainable...
...Over the months fol- Economic laws lowing the sweep, store after store shut down for laws of Congress block after block, leaving a desolate stretch of blight- warriors notwith ed urban cityscape...
...and therefore drug users and dealportant a part in our economy, do - so demonized as they currently are d society...
...According to Valerie Vande Panne, a drug reform activist and former East Harlem resident, the neighborhood drug dealers were not in favor of legalization...
...tion of use...
...There may be no other issue that draws together such diverse advocates, representing such wide ranging, sometimes starkly opposing viewpoints...
...N arly in the inner cities, and these way business and make every other ssing poverty far more difficult...
...Those who drug scene, in whatever capacity, removed from society, as for better all interdependent and interlinked in nd economic activity...
...There were, in my opin- row, the resulting ion, much stronger, certainly more palatable reasons sive economic tur to be for legalization than the economic benefits of the drug trade...
...At a conference in New Jersey a few years province's Mariju ago, Imani Woods, a notable in the harm reduction na growers are les movement, described a chain of events she had efforts to enact n observed on a corridor of a once busy Harlem reason...
...Larg the equation...
...hoods-or in the world's poorest regions-drug growing or distributing or selling is the only work available...
...We marginale members of society, and ignore economic realities, at our cost and peril...
...Across the contiish Columbia, organizers with the ana Party report that many marijuas than enthusiastic about the party's marijuana legalization, for the same e would also apply if the drug trade hrough legalization, but by a cessalegitimately problematic as drug attendant consequences can be, the iuences for society could be cataug warriors were to suddenly suclausible goal of eradicating drugs...
...Money spent by consumers on drugs might help to He agreed, but employ people and aid the economy on that end of we are now...
...are not so easily repealed as are s, the views of congressional drug standing...
...As Eventually, the city conducted a "sweep," clearing addiction and its the drug market off that neighborhood's sidewalks, or economic conseq at least eliminating that glaring form of it...
...them than the risi The ripple effects from that may be even more nent in rural Brit important...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS David Borden is executive director of the Drug Reform Coordination Network, <http://www.stopthedrugwar.org...
...By creating a massive criminal their fundamental underground, I argued, prohibition fuels violence and peril...
...If drugs were legalized tomorunemployment would cause masmoil...
...But the strophic if the dr neighborhood didn't let out a sigh of relief, at least ceed in their imp not for long...
...method of addre Though I accepted Miron's observation in that spirit, Legalization coul my initial reaction was that this is not our strongest greater possibiliti argument (politically at least) for drug legalization, schools, etc...
...users or sellers i The unintended consequences of a drug war opera- whelming econon tion serve as an indicator of some of the challenges participate in the that may be faced in the immediate years after legal- cannot simply be ization is enacted...
...cracking down on drug has no hope of stopping the overlic force of human habit...
...As damaging as prohibition is to poor communities, then, how we make the transition to a post-prohibition system is also an issue of great importance...
...The neighborhood, in addition to all its store- All of the abov fronts, had a substantial drug scene-the "open-air were erased, not t drug market," as it is often called...
...Recently, I spoke with an econom- or worse, we are ic justice activist in Philadelphia, with whom I shared a web of social ai my view of the impact of drug prohibition on our ize and persecut poorest communities...
...This article was originally published in DRCNet's The Week Online, November30, 2001...
...It's easy to dismiss the economic benefits the drug trade in its current of an industry when you already have a job...
...One of the panelists there was Dr...
...avenue...
...they understood very well that legalization would put them out of business, and that was a greater threat to k of incarceration...
...Large numbers of people in In the intervening years, I've concluded that Miron's argu- the poorest regions of the ment is more compelling than I world are dependent on originally thought...
Vol. 36 • September 2002 • No. 2
