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Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Is the War on Drugs Worth What it Costs?
By Dick Minzner
Albuquerque attorney
The merit of public-spending programs depends not only on their objectives, but also on the extent to which they meet those objectives at a justifiable cost.
In the public discussion about America's policy of drug prohibition and the “war on drugs,” there has been some debate about whether such prohibition is appropriate, and there have been efforts to calculate the total cost of our policy. However, there has been little discussion specifically about whether the objectives of prohibition are being met at a reasonable cost on a per-beneficiary basis.
It appears that the total cost of drug prohibition in the United States is about $100 billion annually. This amount includes principally the actual expenditures by federal, state, and local governments for law enforcement and incarceration, and the cost of burglaries and street crimes committed to finance expensive drug habits, which is harder to compute precisely.
It is possible to argue that the actual total cost far exceeds this amount by including some less direct and less quantifiable costs, including the impact of the drug war on our foreign and military policies in countries such as Columbia and Afghanistan.
Presumably, the principal objective of drug prohibition is to prevent Americans from becoming addicted to or dependent on harmful drugs. Evaluating the merit of a $100 billion annual cost requires an estimate of the number of additional addicts America has averted by our present drug prohibition policy.
If, absent prohibition, the United States would have an additional one million drug addicts, we are spending $100,000 every year, year after year, on each of these potential addicts to keep them from harming themselves. If present policy deters five million potential addicts, we are spending $20,000 annually on behalf of each of them. Either of these numbers represents a collective decision by our political system that protecting each of these people from drug dependency is extremely important, perhaps more important than the welfare of many Iraq war veterans, social security retirees, children born into poverty or promising college students.
These deterred potential addicts may constitute a relatively small group. They include only those who actually are now deterred from drug dependency by the cost and illegality of drugs, even though drugs may be readily available to them.
Also relevant to an evaluation of the expenditures to deter drug use is the fate of those deterred. It may be justified to spend $20,000 or $100,000 every year to keep one of our fellow citizens off drugs, if that person becomes a productive and contributing member of society. It may be less justified to spend large amounts of money every year deterring someone from drug use if he is likely to pursue another self-destructive but legal addiction such as alcohol.
A final consideration in evaluating the current drug policy is whether a less expensive program could produce similar results. Assuming present policy is deterring one million or five million potential addicts, might we achieve similar results at a much lower cost with an intensive public information, education and treatment program?
All of these questions are impossible to answer with precision, but certainly there are tools that permit some estimates to be made. Surveys, interviews and experimental educational and public information programs all might contribute to our understanding. It would be useful to compare America's experience with drugs with the experiences of other countries, and with our own country's experience with alcohol prohibition and its repeal.
Academic and government research efforts sometimes seem to be expended on less important questions than these. Both the supporters and opponents of our existing policy would be better able to address the policy issue if some of these questions were answered.
In essence, drug prohibition is a governmental social program designed to benefit a fairly limited group of Americans by spending public funds to improve or preserve the quality of their lives. Political candidates should be asked what annual cost is appropriate for the public to bear to keep each potential addict from being victimized by his own drug use.
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