The most embarrassing graph in American drug policy

[Recursion]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/29/the-most-embarrassing-graph-in-american-drug-policy/

The ability to raise prices is– at least is perceived to be–a critical function of drug control policy. Higher prices discourage young people from using. Higher prices encourage adult users to consume less, to quit sooner, or to seek treatment. (Though higher prices can bring short-term problems, too, as drug users turn to crime to finance their increasingly unaffordable habit.)

An enormous law enforcement effort seeks to raise prices at every point in the supply chain from farmers to end-users: Eradicating coca crops in source countries, hindering access to chemicals required for drug production, interdicting smuggling routes internationally and within our borders, street-level police actions against local dealers.

That’s why this may be the most embarrassing graph in the history of drug control policy. (I’m grateful to Peter Reuter, Jonathan Caulkins, and Sarah Chandler for their willingness to share this figure from their work.) Law enforcement strategies have utterly failed to even maintain street prices of the key illicit substances. Street drug prices in the below figure fell by roughly a factor of five between 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile the number of drug offenders locked up in our jails and prisons went from fewer than 42,000 in 1980 to a peak of 562,000 in 2007.

...

Is there hope? I think so. Drug policy has improved during the Obama years. The president and his key drug policy advisers have largely abandoned the harsh war-on-drugs rhetoric of previous administrations. The number of incarcerated drug offenders has declined for the first time in decades. On the demand side, health reform will greatly expand access to substance abuse treatment. Drug markets are less violent than they used to be, too, which creates greater political space for less punitive policies.

...

[LuvNewcastle]

1. I remember when heroin and cocaine were

too expensive for most people. Heroin was especially expensive and it was hard to get. So we've hired hundreds of thousands of cops and put hundreds of thousands in prison and all we have to show for it is cheaper hard drugs. Funny how things work out some times.

[Recursion]

2. Even back in my undergrad days (early 90s) I remember cocaine being "too rich"

When I went back to grad school it was everywhere; $40 a gram. As compared to something like $100 (1993) dollars a gram back then.

Not that... uh... I know anything about stuff like that or anything...

[Laelth]

3. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth

[uponit7771]

4. +1