DEA Statement |
Response |
| A favorite argument in support of legalization is
that education, health care, road building and a wide array of other worthwhile causes
would benefit from the taxes that could be raised by legalizing drugs and then taxing
them. |
It would certainly be better than sending the money to the
drug lords in South America. |
| The conference participants were extremely
skeptical about the claim of a large tax windfall, and challenged advocates to prove that
the amounts of revenue potentially generated by legalization would counterbalance the
increased social costs that would result from making drugs legal. When asked for
specifics, the advocates have no answers. Are they taking into account the erosion of the
tax base as more and more citizens are unable to work because of drug addiction? Add to
this loss the cost of health and welfare benefits for the unemployed. |
The Federal
Government's Financial Analysis of Legalization considers these problems and shows
that legalization would produce a $37 Billion annual savings. |
| Health and societal costs of drug legalization
would increase. The panel predicted that drug treatment costs, hospitalization for
long-term drug-related disease, and treatment of the consequences of family violence would
further burden our already strapped health care system. |
The panel obviously did not do any serious analysis of the
figures. |
| There is also real reason to believe that liability suits
would be brought against manufacturers and distributors of drugs as damages to individuals
increased, thereby increasing the cost of products. |
This is as opposed to the current situation,
where someone injured by these drugs has no one to sue. Alcohol and tobacco firms face
the same liability problems. We are only recently dealing with the problems caused by
tobacco in a realistic manner -- and government is recovering tremendous amounts of money
from tobacco companies to help pay for the problems of tobacco use. Under the current
system, we will have no such recompense from the South American drug dealers. |
| Ask legalization proponents if the alleged profits from drug
legalization would be enough to pay for the increased fetal defects, loss of workforce
productivity, increased traffic fatalities and industrial accidents, increased domestic
violence and the myriad other problems that would not only be high cost items, but
extremely expensive in terms of social decay. How much are they willing to pay? |
The Federal
Government's Financial Analysis of Legalization considers these problems and shows
that legalization would produce a $37 Billion annual savings. |
| Some facts which help to confirm the observations of the
forum participants may be used in debates: |
|
| Dr. William Olson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for International Narcotics Matters, outlined the magnitude of the social costs borne now
by U.S. taxpayers because of drugs. In his 1994 essay, "Drug Legalization: Getting to
No," he provided the following: |
|
- 25-60 percent of the homeless are addicts, whose homelessness is in large part the
result of addiction and their inability to manage money or make rational, reasonable
decisions. They are increasingly supported at public expense.
|
He fails to mention that alcohol addiction is the
single biggest problem here -- and further fails to provide the references to back up his
statement. |
- 75-80 percent of the 1.2 - 1.5 million teenage runaways are substance abusers, and not
because prohibition made them use drugs or run away.
|
If a teenager is a runaway, then it should be
self-evident that they will have multiple behavioral problems, probably as a result of
mistreatment at home. The solution to the problem is to address the issues which cause
large numbers of teens to run away from home and to abuse drugs, not to imprison them
after they have these problems. |
- 30-50 percent of mental patients are chemical abusers, 50-60 percent of these crack and
cocaine. They are largely on public support.
|
Mental patients have all sorts of aberrant
behavior. The DEA is implying that cocaine made them mental patients, which is clearly not
supported by the evidence they have presented here. |
- As many as 11 percent of young mothers use drugs during pregnancy.
|
The DEA fails to mention that the biggest
problems here are alcohol and tobacco. Again, they mislead by failing to distinguish
drugs. |
- 2.5 percent of all live births, some 100,000 babies, are born addicted to cocaine. They
have lifelong learning disabilities and emotional problems.
|
This is a bald-faced lie. The DEA cannot present
any credible evidence that this is true. |
- $50 billion is devoted annually to dealing with the health care costs of drug addiction
and its collateral costs. These will not disappear with legalization.
|
No, but it will be spent more effectively, and
thus achieve greater results in reducing the harm done by drugs. See, for example, the
studies of the cost-effectiveness of drug treatment versus prison, on the Rand Corporation web site. |
- There are approximately 500,000 heroin and 2 million other substance abusers. Their care
is increasingly a demand on society.
|
The same figures that the DEA uses to show a drop
in casual use of drugs also show that, during the same period, there was no appreciable
reduction in the number of substance abusers. Therefore, by the figures the DEA cites
themselves, tough enforcement did not reduce the number of abusers. |
- There is no way to predict how much revenue would be generated by the United States
Government taxing legalized drugs
|
Yes, there is. See the Federal Government's Financial Analysis of
Legalization |
- Such a scenario depends entirely upon the parameters of legalization, and what the
policy means vis a vis sources of drugs.
|
The DEA blithely ignores this point when they say
that legalization would result in increased use. |
- If U.S. farmers were given subsidies to produce drugs (as they are given subsidies for
tobacco) the U.S. taxpayers would be responsible for paying for these subsidies. If
foreign sources of drugs (opium or coca) were allowed to supply the raw material for these
products, an elaborate system of tariffs and trade preferences would need to be
established.
|
This is as opposed to the current situation,
where there are no regulations, taxes, or tariffs. The trade is ruled entirely by drug
lords who pay no taxes and follow no rules. |
- Taxes would likely push the cost of the product up.
|
Not anything like prohibition does. The current
policy is simply a price support system for drugs, with all the proceeds going to
criminals. |
- Taxing the drugs would make them more expensive at the checkout counter.
|
With cocaine at $100 per gram on the street,
there would be plenty of room for taxation. |
- The drug cartels do not provide a share of their receipts to their respective
governments.
|
Exactly. That is, the government gets no tax
revenue to address the social problems. |
- They are all business. Anyone going into competition with them, including the U.S.
Government, would have to be all business too, prepared to cut prices, if necessary, to
stay in the game.
|
This wouldn't be any more difficult to control
than it was with alcohol. |
- Legalized gambling has not put illegal gambling out of business.
|
A better example is alcohol Prohibition. Ending
alcohol prohibition did effectively put illegal alcohol production out of business. |
- In fact, legalized gambling has produced a whole new group of people who cannot control
their need to gamble.
|
That wouldn't make it a good idea to address the
problem by throwing people in jail for their addiction to gambling. |
- Many states have gone into the gambling business to raise funds for public purposes,
with some success, although as more jurisdictions get into it the profits decline.
|
The DEA seems to be concerned that legal profits
would not be as high as illegal profits -- therefore, we presume, it must be in our best
interest to have higher illegal profits going to drug lords in South America. |
- Meanwhile, bookies ply their trade as they always have. The reason is the payoff they
offer is better than the legal gambling schemes.
|
This is simply not true. Nevada is the best
example. |
- For every million dollars wagered, that is, they return a higher percentage to the
winners. Again, it's a matter of overhead. The bookies are not trying to build schools, so
they don't have to earmark a percentage of the profits for such endeavors. So long as that
is so, they will always have a market that is loyal to them. The same situation could
logically occur if drugs were legal.
|
A better comparison is the comparison to alcohol
prohibition. The black market in alcohol all but disappeared with the end of alcohol
prohibition. |
