Is it Worth It?

Beatrice E. Rangel

150,000 drug related homicides have taken place in Mexico from 2006 to 2019 ; 61,000 people have disappeared since 1964; drug cartels pocket every year between $20B and &25B in drug related income’; between 2010 and 2012  750,000 guns were purchased in the US to be smuggled to illicit groups in Mexico; between 2009 and 2018 132,823 guns were recovered from crime scenes; one in every ten Mexican children loses one or both parents through drug induced violence.

These are staggering figures about the disastrous impact of drug related crimes upon Mexico have become the new normal for statesmen, political leaders and public opinion who in the back of their minds think this is the price to be paid to fight drugs.

This standing is strikingly absurd when you contrast these figures with the progress made in combating drug trafficking. And just perusing a few figures one seems to have to call defeat.  49 years ago, when the War on Drugs was launched by President Richard Nixon the value of the drug trade was about US 800M; there were about four drug cartels in Mexico; four more in Colombia and two in Bolivia. Now there are 20 in Mexico; about 16 in Colombia and only one in Bolivia led by a former head of state. This thought leads us to flash back and revisit Milton Friedman who in the 1970s foretold this outcome.

According to Professor Friedman a Nobel Laurate and a courageous libertarian the thought of using state goods to correct private behaviors that only affect the individual himself would lead to misuse of public funds and corruption as the state created an income generating monopoly for criminals.

He would say “ On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs”.

From the effectiveness of the war on drugs in reducing usage he would indicate that by 1970 200, 000 people were in prison. The prison population today it is 2.2 million people. Accessing or distributing drugs cause 65% of robberies; 56% of weapons violations; 55% of burglaries and 55% of vehicle theft. The attempt to prohibit drugs is thus by far the major source of the growth in the prison population. Further, expenditures in drug interdiction are about $60B per year for the last 25 years .According to DEA statistics this only halts 10% of the total drug trade.

Friedman then wondered whether 90% of failure is a good benchmark to engage expenditures in public funds. From the purely economic point of view, the war on drugs safeguards a very lucrative monopoly for criminals. The street price of a single ounce of pure cocaine is several thousands of dollars, yet the cost to produce the drug is less than $20. Th sheer size of this margin invites entrants to what is a guaranteed economic success. It also allows the entrant to spend in creating transportation and distribution routes and in forming private armies to protect the trade. Such a high markup also is a strong incentive for people to enter the sales and trafficking of these drugs. Should drugs be decriminalized , the price would drop to a fraction of current street values and the incentive to push drugs would disappear.

And as time goes by and trade in illicit continues to growth adding every few years new and more potent products to the exchange the question arises as to whether the world should not engage in and in-depth- discussion of the soundness of the Friedman theory for public policy making.