Drug War Option

There is one big segment of the private economy that I would like to see nationalized because it is too private, violates antitrust laws, avoids all taxes, draws too many people into lives of domestic abuse, burglary, mugging, and other criminal activity, puts vulnerable teens in particular at very high risk, ties up tens of thousands of law enforcement personnel, and results in expensive construction and management of prisons which always seem to be overcrowded.  That segment is the illegal drug trade.

Government takeover of it fits very nicely with the government takeover of health care and student loans.  Health care and drug use are clearly related.  And, President Obama was very interested in cutting out the middle men, banks, in the student loan business so the idea of cutting out drug dealers who pay little or no tax on their incomes and often end up as wards of the state in our prisons should be a no-brainer.

As health care delivery is evolving, with drug and grocery stores and big national retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target offering flu shots and sometimes treatment and prescriptions for minor ailments, we have the perfect distribution system already in place for formerly illegal drugs.  Perhaps even Best Buy, Office Depot, Home Depot, and Lowes could join.  Forget Amazon and other online sellers because, to buy these powerful drugs, buyers will need to show up in person and agree to some monitoring and controls.   Granted the presence of drug buyers may make waits at such as the CVS Minute Clinic a bit longer, but it shouldn't be any more troublesome that the delays coffee and candy and gasoline buyers experience waiting in line behind government lottery ticket purchasers at the local Seven Eleven.

Government would continue to confiscate or purchase domestically available drugs and arrange for drug importation as necessary.  Oil tankers arriving from abroad could do double duty with oil in the tanks and drugs on deck.  Mexican drug lords wanting to sell in the USA would find themselves sitting in federal conference rooms negotiating price with federal employees instead of smuggling.  I’m thinking the prices would be very unattractive and they would give up and go home.  Of course the eventual goal would be drug self sufficiency, growing and producing all our own, and completely stopping importation.  No point in letting something as simple as that screw up the balance of trade.

The participating retail outlets would be compensated on an annual flat fee basis rather than a “fee for service” basis.  “Fee for Service” would be almost certain to motivate undesirable efforts to sell more drugs to more people.  All advertising, even subliminal advertising, would be strictly prohibited.  And this is, of course, the reason for nationalization rather than opening the business up to free enterprise.  It is not a business we would want to grow.

The only requirements for purchase of the formerly illegal drugs would be agreement to finger printing, surgical implantation of a gps tracker, a small DU (Drug User) tattoo on the left ear, and regular drug tests to prove that the drugs being provided were actually being used personally and responsibly rather than being sold or accumulated in inventory.  “Use it or lose it” would replace “Just Say No” as the operative motto.  Of course the reason for the tattoo is that breath and body odors are excellent indicators of smoking or drinking, but no such easy detection is available with some of the illegal drugs.  We need to know whom we can trust.  There may remain a very small high-priced drug black market for celebrities, sports figures, executives, and other customers who must maintain absolute confidentiality about their participation or simply cannot stand the damage to their image that would result from being seen standing in line at the Wal-Mart.  OK, we can skip the tattoo and gps tracker, but everybody knows that drinking in secret is dangerous and counterproductive and I suspect secret drug use is just as bad.  Let’s just be honest with each other.

The sale of drugs and the cost of the regular testing for those who can afford to pay would add to the GDP, and income from such activities and from drug production and distribution would be taxable.  We could shut down more than half our prisons, release law enforcement personnel to focus on national security including border integrity, eliminate the financial motive for youth getting into the drug business, and dramatically reduce theft and other drug related crimes.   Motivation for getting more people hooked on drugs would disappear, and more of us could get serious about getting good educations and finding some way to earn an honest living in this economy. Easy drug access might be some consolation for us aging seniors when we find that Medicare still “covers” the expensive medical treatments we need but the coverage is so stingy there aren't any doctors left willing to accept Medicare patients.  I don’t really see the downside. We may, out of sentiment and sympathy and concern for individuals, choose to continue fighting an endless War on Poverty, but surely we can do something about this counterproductive War on Drugs. 

After all, is there really any valid moral difference, justifying federal intervention, between medical marijuana and morphine drips, or between beer, wine, liquor, Xanax, or Valium, and occasional snorts of cocaine?

The chart below from Wikipedia shows incarceration rates in the US fairly stable until President Nixon’s June, 1971, declaration of War on Drugs.  Since then, it has increased 350%.  One may see evidence here also of discrimination against men.  Or maybe men are just unruly enough to justify imprisonment of almost 1 percent of them even if one of the major results is expert training in how to be better criminals.

The chart and raw data can be seen here.

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