Links 2023-09-06
Another set for one of the most important issues
Having just done a links post on another Big Six topic (immigration), let’s piggyback on that with a set on another—drug prohibition. Specifically, let’s tackle the potential elephant in the room of overdose deaths and related problems.
Right up front we have Megan McArdle telling us what we need to hear—that the cure for the problem is legalization straight up.
When my dentist prescribes Vicodin, I don’t worry about filling the prescription at Walgreens instead of CVS. I trust that our well-regulated pharmaceutical supply system will deliver the correct dosage no matter where I buy it. I also don’t worry about getting caught in the crossfire when rival drugstores compete for territory.
As good as the article is, it is light on perhaps the best point. The iron law of prohibition is that “the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the drugs will become.”1
Supporting both of the concepts above, Scott Sumner argues against the simplistic thinking that more availability via legalization would mean more deaths.
In the 2000s and early 2010s, there was an increase in the abuse of legal opioids such as Oxycontin. The federal government responded by cracking down of Oxycontin prescriptions. As this legal medication became more difficult to obtain, addicts switched to illegal alternatives such as fentanyl. The new policy turned out to be a spectacular failure, as opioid deaths skyrocketed much higher in the years after the crackdown on Oxycontin use.
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As is so often the case in public policy, this is a question of elasticities. How much would legalizing drugs increase the rate of drug addiction? I don’t know anyone who would decide to go out and consume fentanyl, but I don’t doubt that in a country as large as the US the effect of legalization would be to substantially boost drug use, perhaps by millions of people.
At the same time, full legalization would dramatically improve the safety of drugs in two ways. First, those who chose to consume opioids would know exactly what dose they were getting, which would reduce the risk of accidental overdose. Most fatalities seem to be due to people consuming more fentanyl than they anticipated. Second, if drugs were legal then people might choose to consume less deadly drugs. That investment banker ended up dying from fentanyl not because he wished to consume fentanyl, rather because in a market where cocaine is illegal the product will often be sold in an adulterated form.
Finally, Bryan Caplan reframes the debate in his wonderful counter-conventional wisdom manner arguing that the extreme drug abusers and addicts are the chief victimizers rather than the chief victims of drugs.
Abusers don’t just mistreat their families, friends, neighbors, and passersby. Even worse, they give vice a bad name. Abusers inspire the indiscriminate, unjust “wars” on innocent users. They inspire prohibition, which takes production out of the hands of ordinary businesspeople and into the hands of criminals.
Richard Cowan “How the Narcs Created Crack”