Fatal Features of the Prohibition Blunder: Ignoring Economists
As we’ve shown time and again throughout our research and content, the War on Drugs has failed, and it’s time to focus on the shift to a winning strategy. The country—and the world at large—cannot sustain the mass incarceration, the growing overdose deaths, and the complete complicity with organized crime that Drug Prohibition enables.
In a May 2014 report published by the LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy entitled “Ending the Drug Wars”, a federalist approach to drug policy reform is presented and discussed under two main approaches: (1.) To drastically reallocate resources “away from counterproductive and damaging policies towards proven public health policies”, and (2.) to pursue “rigorously monitored policy and regulatory experimentation”.
Particularly enlightening is the list on page 14 listing ideas for minimizing the downsides of prohibition, such as maintaining properly resources and strongly prioritized public health interventions, shifting policing and enforcement strategy away from eradicating global drug markets in favor of managing their impact, and simply being honest about the impossibility of a “drug-free world” in order to realign policies around the Hippocratic standard of ‘first do no harm’.
Read the full article and compare with more recent cases of Prohibition-related disregard for economists’ warnings. It is only through effective regulation via legalization that the immoral War on Drugs can be stopped and millions of lives—young and old—can be saved.
Watch our video The Prohibition Blunder: Why America Needs Drug Legalization Now to learn more about the effort to legalize and regulate drugs and how #YourPowerfulVoice is the key to shifting to this winning strategy.
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