just for the record

gangs in LA go back 90 odd years.

I don't believe there was a "War on Drugs" in the 1920s.

Different Drug.

BTW a lot of what gangs fight over is territory. Just like many birds and for the same reason: resources.

I tried to leave the same comment there. Won't work.

I think I understand the logic behind the market solution to drug crime through legalization. And it does sound like a very appealing solution.

But here's my concern: A lot of Libertarians seem to think that the drug cartels and gangs will just vanish or lose major power when everyone can get pot legally, just like the mafia lost a lot of power after Prohibition was rescinded. But we should remember that the mafia was not founded upon illegal alcohol sales, and that they just went back to doing what they had always done before, gambling, theft, and then insider trading--all potentially aided by the legal availability of alcohol.

But I'm not so sure that the drug cartels would give up their market so readily, esp. since so much pot is produced abroad beyond the reach of US authorities and then imported to the US only for sale and consumption. If the US expects to make money taxing legalized pot, couldn't the drug cartels easily just undercut legal prices, perhaps taking a small financial hit but maintaining its already extensive and efficient framework all the more easily on account of decreased US police spending? Wouldn't that be the illegal market response to higher legal prices and reduced police attention?

JeremiadBullfrog,

I get your point. The drug gang profits will decline hardly at all if the market price of the drug in question declines from $100 an oz to 10¢ or 30¢ an oz. Think tomatoes. Or onions. Or potatoes.

Proof positive that drugs make people stupid.

Dude - if pot becomes a regular commodity the gangs can't compete. Their cost structure is too high.

Of course if the politicians support the illegal market with an $100 an oz tax all bets are off. It is a known fact that drugs DO make politicians stupid. Especially the ones that don't use them.

The deal is: if the gangs go into the stealing and murdering business there will be complainants. Of course if they focus on consensual crimes they will be harder to eradicate. Maybe we can make abortion illegal to help them out.

BTW it took about 40 years from the end of alcohol prohibition until gangs had lost much of their power. Roughly from 1933 until Nixon - who breathed new life into the gangs. But the old gangs had gone into more legit businesses like unionism by then. So we had a different group of ethnics arise to take over drug distribution. Latinos at the wholesale level and cross border smuggling (mostly) and blacks doing street retail (mostly). Whites? Home sales. For most whites a sideline - a way to cover the cost of use rather than the cost of living.

Any way - the sooner we start the better.

I still wonder what it is about drugs that makes people who don't use them unable to think clearly.

M.Simon,

There's no need to be snarky. I'm trying to think through this for myself and have a discussion, not just blindly accept your claims, however well-founded they may be. I realize you're very frustrated about this issue because you've invested a lot of time and energy into researching it and coming to conclusions you believe are right, and it's not fun to have to put up with people who question you but have clearly not spent the intellectual effort that you have to understand this and are not willing to. But do remember that patience and politeness go a long way in the discussion of contentious issues.

Anyway, I don't think you've completely understood my point, and that's partially my fault for not being clear about what I'm getting at.

For starters, I should have said this at the beginning, but I'm not trying to address the absolute best case scenario. I'm trying to look at what might plausibly happen in the current political climate and how some of the arguments I've heard might not pan out in it as they're claimed to.

That said, I understand that if legalization causes a precipitous drop in prices on account of widespread easy availability, then that will run the gangs out of business. I'm not arguing with that at all.

My question, however, is whether or not so precipitous a drop will actually happen as it should, since that depends upon a number of related regulatory matters affecting the production, availability, and sale of the drug.

Like you admit, if politicians slap an appreciable tax on pot, then that throws a wrench into things. This is not trivial speculation, since one of the common (not necessarily good, but common nonetheless) arguments for legalization is that it can boost revenue through taxation.

There's also the matter of who could grow the drug. I would agree that if anyone could legally obtain seeds to grow their own pot, then that would cripple the illegal market.

But is it likely that in this political climate such laws will pass? It seems more likely to me that at most we'd get some kind of incremental change whereby there could be only certain approved growers and sellers for restricted amounts, as is currently the case with medical marijuana in CA and MI, I believe. Under these circumstances, a more realistic price analogy than vegetable commodities would be prescription drugs or perhaps over-the-counter medicine.

Or maybe beer.

Now, this seems to me like it really would seriously dent the illegal market. But then we do have to figure in the costs of regulating marijuana on the order of normal medications or alcohol. I'm guessing that this would cost a whole lot less than the current expenditures.

So my overall point is not that the general Libertarian arguments about legalization are wrong, but rather that they're being a bit oversold given what's likely to happen in this political climate. And I'm worried that the unfulfilled promises of a half-implemented policy would perhaps be more damaging to the cause in the long run. In this case, I'm thinking of how initial trends in drinking age lowering in the 1970s (e.g., http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/73/2/163) are currently used to support raising the drinking age.

Well, that's my two cents.

JeremiadBullfrog,

People on the 'net complain about my arrogance all the time. Even the first mate complains about it at home. And you know what? I'm arrogant. A man has got to know his limitations.

J,

Those points you make are all unknown. Why? Well they depend on the unknown details of the legalization regime.

If you are allowed to grow your own the marginal price goes to zero and the tax is unsupportable.

Think about a tax on home grown tomatoes.

In all recorded history no one has ever died from a pot overdose. It is safer than aspirin (about 1,000 deaths a year in America).

What keeps the war on pot going? Irrational fear. And what keeps that going? People don't educate themselves - obviously the government will not educate you. It is not in their interest.