Drug Prohibition Leads to Unnecessary Deaths

David BoazI wrote an op ‐​ed aboutending the drug warin the New York Times in 1988. It ’s taking the world a long time to come around to my position. Meanwhile, the effects of prohibition persist. I complained in 1988 about 824,000 arrests a year. It wasmore than 1.6 million in 2018. I noted that the federal government was spending $3.9 billion a year on the drug war, and the figure is far higher now, thoughestimatesvary.This week ’s newspapers have reminded me of some of the less immediately obvious effects of prohibition. As with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, it’s not enough simply to announce a ban on the possession, use, and/ ​or sale of some substance. Since people want to use the substance — that’s why other people want to ban it — the law will have to be enforced. That means police, arrests, courts, prisons, and billions of tax dollars. And some amount of violence will be involved, both by the police andamong rival drug sellers. Almost half the people in federal prisons are thereon drug ‐​related charges.The Washington Postreports, “Thousands of federal inmates serving their sentences at home under supervision during thecoronavirus pandemic might have to return to prison when the pandemic ends. ” Among those inmates:Gwen Levi, 75, is one of the inmates trying to stay out of federal prison. She was sent to home confinement in June after serving 16 years of a 24 ‐​year sentence for conspiracy to se...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs