The War on Drugs and its Consequences

The Economist this week has a paper on the re-election of Álvaro Uribe in Colombia (see here). Among other things, the article explains the nefarious effects of the “war on drugs” on Colombia and other Latin American countries. Any article in a well-respected magazine explaining that drug prohibition (and US drug policy with regard to cocaine) is not a good idea because of its terrible unintended consequences (especially in terms of violence) is rare enough to be mentioned. As The Economist puts it:

The main barrier between Colombia and normality is the failure of cocaine prohibition in consuming countries around the world. Until richer countries move to legalize the drug, removing the superprofits and violence that its illegal status attracts, even an exceptional leader, such as Mr Uribe, will struggle to complete the task of pacifying his country.

Drug prohibition has been a failure for many years, and its consequences on the developing world have been terrible. Hopefully some day this now old message (Milton Friedman has explained this for a long time) will be heard.

Comments

[Colombia Hoy]

The so called war on drugs has been a big failure. During the last 20 years the international prices have not changed dramatically, the cultivated areas have remained fixed, the number of cosumners did not dropped, while the humanitarian cost in countries like Colombia and Bilivia has been huge.
Most important is that the effort made by the producer countries do not have the same reaction in the consumer countries.

[Rafe]

For top flight policy analysis of the war on drugs, see the third book reviewed on this page.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/ACL845LEHNC7/103-0546203-4097434?%5Fencoding=UTF8&display=public&page=1

This book presents a massively researched and dispassionate cost/benefit analysis of the likely effects of various forms of legalisation for the major categories of illicit drugs. The subtitle of the book signals that the conceptual framework is enriched by a survey the international experience in the control of prostitution, gambling, alcohol and tobacco as well as the illicit drugs.

On laws and lawlessness (above) Ernest Gellner reported on the rules that evolved for conflict resolution between the Berber tribes.

[Frederic]

Glad to hear that Colombians themselves know that the war on drugs has been a massive failure.
Rafe, thanks for the ref. I didn't know the book.