Links 2024-04-19 - Forward & Backward

Progress isn't a straight line.

The good news is things are getting better over the long run—a far perspective. That is the lesson of the Hockey Stick of Human Prosperity. So be a long-run optimist.

The bad news is things often go backwards and sometimes meaningfully so. We get examples of this all the time albeit often exaggerated or taken without the context of improvement. So perhaps be a short-run pessimist.

Here are three cases that happen to all involve the issue of illicit drugs where progress is clearly uneven. And that is true regardless if you agree with me on the merits of drug legalization.

Because of FOOL¹ and FOOM², we get less freedom (the direct, intended result) and a more dangerous world (the unintended consequence).

Let’s start with the most encouraging one, Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer comments on New Zealand’s recent decision to repeal its smoking ban. In and of itself, this is good news. But the devil is in the addendum that it will keep its severe restrictions on disposable nicotine e-cigarettes.

Next is again Dr. Singer now discussing what is simply a step backwards as Idaho chooses the naive hope of abstinence over proven effective methods to preserve life. The state is repealing the law permitting harm-reduction organizations from operating syringe services programs (SSPs).

This is unfortunate since, as he writes,

Contra SSP critics, there is no evidence that SSPs enable illicit drug use. But think about it: Do SSP critics truly believe that thousands of people have been pining to inject heroin or fentanyl that they can easily access on the black market, but the only thing stopping them is that they don’t know where to obtain a clean syringe?

SSPs’ record of reducing the spread of HIV, hepatitis, and other deadly infections is so impressive that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the surgeons general of the Trump and Biden administrations, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the World Health Organization, the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine all endorse SSPs and urge lawmakers to remove legal obstacles preventing harm reduction organizations from operating them.

Lastly we have Dr. Singer (for the hat trick) and David Bier arguing against the intuitive but wrong idea that fentanyl busts by police help the overdose problem.

It is a sad fact that the idea of the prohibition harms more than it helps is counter conventional wisdom. But the fact remains that it is.

From their piece:

Start with the short term. When local law enforcement conducts major drug busts, they do temporarily disrupt the market for street drugs, but people who use and have grown dependent on drugs do not simply give up drugs and live clean. Instead, they search out new, unfamiliar dealers who might sell them drugs with different ingredients and potency, which can lead to more deaths.

Now, it’s true that it might take days or weeks for drug users to connect with a new dealer, and this might seem to “save lives.” But this often backfires, because by the time they find a new source, users’ tolerance has waned, making them more susceptible to a fatal overdose if they consume their usual dose.

So, drug busts can cause more deaths, even in the very near term. In the long term, their cumulative effect can unleash an avalanche of mortal destruction. As the crackdown on a substance intensifies, drug producers seek new ways to stretch their supply and still make the same profits, incentivizing the creation of ever‐​more potent forms of drugs.

Singer and Bier end with some concrete ways that we can save lives and effectively fight drug abuse. Again, sadly, it’s hard to have much hope that we will be rational enough to turn the ship around any time soon.

It’s hard to put one’s head around the idea that drug busts are killing people. Drug busts feel justified. The impulse to save people from themselves is strong and understandable. But policymakers and law enforcement should stop basing policy on gut instincts and emotional reactions. They should rationally look at these facts and reconsider the consequences of their actions.

Progress is won slowly—truly a series of ultra marathons.

1. Fear Of Others’ Liberty - TM, Arnold Kling

2. Fear Of Other’s Mistakes - TM, me