to finalize, the number of externalities concommitant withlegalization render its implementation highly risky and uncontrollable. And consider that if we legalize with the stipulation of regulated use of drugs, there will still exist an underground black market for drugs that are not regulated. Thus the issue of drug dealers would still exist even in a legalized but regulated regime. There will still remain a market for underaged users, and there will still remain a market for users who require drugs of high potentcy that the government is not willing to provide. The black market will continue to live on in numerous ways, and so will criminal activity.

Data also shows that if you legalize a drug, dealers may begin to more aggressively import their products, and push them harder via commercialization. Why would we risk enduring such scenarios? The track record of legalization is not solid enough to provide good reason to end prohibition. It is better to spend a mere 20 billion dollars or so yearly to fight the drug war, than to have our drug-related healthcare costs spike in a few years due to the increased usage that will occur, and has been shown to occur under legalization regimes. Our economy is already buckling under the high cost for healthcare, why would we risk adding to its financial stress, risking true collapse? If we want to preserve our healthcare system and economy, our society must be one that shuns the use of drugs and combats their use to the utmost extent.

While we may cut the homicide rate by say 50% (an extremely generous assumption), economically motivated homicide would still exist and so would crime. it would simply shift to other sectors of the economy. Criminals are dynamically efficient and will always find ways to make a profit illegally. By taking away their drugs, we are not taking away their ability generate new means to kill or earn profits through illegal means.

Finally, many drug dealers are career criminals who have been arrested numerous times for different offenses. Just because you take away their drugs does not imply that crime will decrease. Criminals will simply move to other criminal activities which can earn them a profit, e.g.: your assertion that economic profit attracts market entry. Criminals will simply move to the next profitable activity in the criminal sector. Some of them may get "legal" jobs, but those who have criminal records and would not be hired. Many drug dealers have criminal records, and would not be hired. We can then infer that they would again rely on the informal sector to finance their livelihoods, since the formal economy will not accept them.

If you say that the essay does not refute your point , then I will do so presently.
Police do not fight the drug war to stop dealers from selling, they fight the drug war because people should not use drugs which harm their bodies; we all have to pay for their use through increased healthcare costs, social, and family costs. Society would be better off if we did not have the thousands of drug and alcohol induced deaths that occur each year. Legalizing drugs would not reduce these deaths, it would increase them by making it more acceptable to use drugs. This is evidenced by observational data. Your theories of inelasticity do not hold in real world examples. You can continue to cite a theory, but if it does not hold in real life, it is a poor theory. Your theory is poor.

Your statement that alcohol consumption was unaffected by prohibition is completely fallacious given that consumption data during the prohibition era is unavailable.

Jeffrey Miron, a legalization proponent who cites Warburton, doesnt even have these data in his analysis of prohibition.

However he does have data charts which depict, as I stated before, a decline in cirrhosis rates during the prohibition years. This decline remained steady during the prohibition years. rates of cirrhosis did not increase until after prohibition was repealed. It took them a long steady climb to return to previous levels. This is fact and it is demonstrated by the data.

Ergo alcohol related deaths decreased and, by making an educated guess, we can infer that consumption must have decreased as well.

frankly, your argument that prohibition should be repealed because people still have access to drugs exposes itself to as much ridicule as an assertion that DUI laws should be repealed because there are still drunk drivers.

"As an aside, according to the essay you linked, the average heroin addict spends 10k/year on drugs - financed largely by crime. If he could spend only $1,000 a year on heroin, we can't reasonably expect an increase in habit-financing crime."

What is to say he would be limited to $1000 per year? if drugs are legalized, that person will be able to buy more heroin as the market price goes down. When he is out of money, he will go back to crime to finance the habit again. this cycle will not be ended by legalization.

in addition, the article i posted showed proof that legalization experiments resulted in increased usage. The idea of elasticity, while being nice in a classroom setting, is not always applicable to real life scenarios. If usage is increased, then we can expect to see a rise in healthcare costs associated with drug abuse. It is a lose lose situation. the fact is, society would be better off if drugs didnt exist. regardless of what people say about marijuana, it does have side effects, and recent medical data show its impact on the brain, and short term memory, as well as its addictive potential. It decreases productivity among other things. people consider marijuana harmless even though one puff has been measured to have the same amount of tar as 4 puffs on a cigarette (filtered or not i cant remember).

society as a whole has to pay because of healthcare costs associated with caring for junkies, not to mention cigarette and alcohol users.

before you retort, i want to see hard evidence behind your statments.
The only evidence you've had so far is rhetoric. PS spain and italy have legalized heroin and now have the highest usage rates around the world. officials are now starting to try to rollback the legalization laws.

The example of spain and italy (only two places to legalize the drugs) is real world evidence that your idealistic vision did not pan out the times it was tried. Someone else had the same theory as you and it failed.

i have already shown that your assertion that prohibition was a failure was widely a result of systemic corruption that plagued legal, political, and law enforcement officials. systemic corruption of the sort that existed during prohibition is in fact, history. now there are small groups of officers instead of entire police forces and they are being prosecuted for their transgressions. you ignore evidence that shows usage declined, e.g. decline in rates of cirrhosis. this is the only data available which we can use to measure the effect of prohibition, and it indeed shows a drop. so how can you say it was a failure if indicators show it was a success? add that to the fact that systemic law enforcement corruption existed in the 20s, making prohibition a priori less effective, and your argument suddenly seems weak.

prohibition is much more strongly enforced today, with a more accountable police force.

"Remember that the vast majority of drug users are not violent criminals, thieves, murderers, etc. "

"Currently, there are far more drug users who are pushed to criminality (i.e., robbery, etc) than there are drug dealers, and it's the users who are committing the crimes, predominately because they can't afford the drugs otherwise. "

your use of hyperbole confuses the amount of magnitude you assign to these problems . but the main point is that prohibition in the 20s was much less weakly enforced by an extremely corrupt police force than exists now. you will be hard pressed to describe any drug dealing organization that has co-opted law enforcement and politics to the extent of the 20s 30s mafia under Al Capone et al. Corruption now is much less widespread and less visible and more punished. and as i stated, if cirrhosis rates decreased during prohibition, surely it can be posited that alcohol usage declined as well. since actual usage rates are not available, this is the best evidence we have, and it gives credence to the assertion that usage decreased.

prohibition certainly reduced consumption of alcohol, the main point of dissenters is that it was ineffective at removing consumption. and as i stated, this was largely due to a corrupt and co-opted legal system, political system, and law enforcement agency to extents that do not exist by todays standards. It is time for the alcohol prohibition argument to be thrown out.

I said drug dealers with little or no skills; clearly not 100% of all drug dealers have little or no skills. Your concern is duly alleviated.