… is from page 33 of Thomas Sowell’s Compassion Versus Guilt, a 1987 collection of some of his popular essays; specifically, it’s from Sowell’s November 29th, 1984, column titled “Withdrawal from Drugs” [original emphasis]:
Drugs are inherently a problem for the individual who takes them, but they are a much bigger problem for society – precisely because they are illegal. It is their illegality that makes them costly and drives people to desperation to get the money by any means, at anybody else’s expense.
DBx: Yes.
Arguments in favor of drug prohibition too often rely on a few illegitimate moves. One of these moves is to identify very real problems that arise (or that would arise) from the taking of narcotics that have been legalized – problems that extend beyond the adults who choose to take narcotics. Such problems are a genuine downside – a ‘cost’ – of drug legalization. But the reality of these costs is insufficient to justify continued criminalization of narcotics; these costs must be weighed against the benefits of legalization.
The benefits of legalization extend beyond the benefits that drug users might get from using legalized drugs. Even if we ignore the users’ benefits (or insist that these benefits aren’t real or credible), there are benefits to those of us who don’t use illicit narcotics. Chief among these benefits is reduced corruption of law enforcement (including governments’ reduced reliance on civil asset forfeiture), along with a reduced role for criminals. This latter observation points to a second illegitimate move frequently made by drug warriors: they point to the problems that arise from drug use in today’s criminalized system. But many of these problems (as Sowell points out) are artifacts of the criminalization of drugs.
Just as criminal gangs no longer supply booze in America, criminal gangs would not supply other now-illegal intoxicants were these intoxicants legally purchasable and usable by adults.
