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Store: An Independent Institute Book
8 Figures • 4 Tables
© 2004 |
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DRUG WAR CRIMES
The Consequences of Prohibition
By
Jeffrey A. Miron
The “War on Drugs” claims thousands of lives every year in the United States. Each year, the U.S. government spends over $30 billion on the drug war and arrests 1.5 million American citizens on drug-related charges. There are now nearly half a million Americans imprisoned for drug offenses. The official claim is that drug prohibition deters drug use, reduces crime, and improves public health. But is this claim valid?
In Drug War Crimes, Jeffrey Miron offers a balanced and sophisticated analysis of the true costs, benefits, and consequences of drug prohibition. The evidence yields a disturbing finding: the more resources given to the Drug War, the greater the homicide rate. Miron then examines various alternatives to drug prohibition and identifies the most effective solution.
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: The Economic Analysis of Drug Prohibition
- Chapter 3: The Effect of Drug Prohibition on Drug Consumption: Evidence from Alcohol Prohibition
- Chapter 4: Prohibitions and Violence
- Chapter 5: Is Prohibition Good Policy?
- Chapter 6: Alternatives to Prohibition and Other Policies Toward Drugs
- Chapter 7: Conclusion
- References
- Index
- About the Author
Praise for Drug War Crimes “In Drug War Crimes, Miron offers a powerful economic analysis detailing the irrationality of using the criminal law to prohibit drugs. He offers an equally powerful explanation of the terrible human harm caused by the drug war and advances the only practical alternative to the present failed policies.”
—Joseph D. McNamara, former Chief of Police of San Jose, Calif. and Kansas City, Missouri; Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
“Miron’s arguments are lucid, well-reasoned, and powerful. Legislators and other policy-makers would benefit from his non-politicized, non-moralistic approach; everyone can benefit from reading this important, insightful work.”
—Margaret M. Russell, former Vice President, ACLU; Professor of Law, Santa Clara University
“The case for drug legalization has been made before, but Jeffrey Miron strengthens and enriches the case with his analyses of data from the prohibition era and from other countries that strongly corroborate the common sense conclusion that drug prohibition causes far more crime, disease and death than would legalization, or even a retrenchment of the irrational drug war we have been mired in for nearly a century.”
—Steven B. Duke, Professor of Law, Yale University
“Professor Miron has made a highly significant improvement to the canon of drug war literature and his book can well be used as the standard for judging all else in the field. He approaches the subject with scholarly precision and treats all arguments, pro and con, with integrity and clear perception. Drug War Crimes avoids all the hyperbole of zealots willing to dispense with truth, objectivity and reason for the sake of their predetermined positions. A reasonable mind will find this book exceedingly valuable. It is a totally honest book that has been needed for a very long time.”
—John L. Kane, Jr., Senior Judge, U.S. District Court
“In Drug War Crimes, Jeffrey Miron has written a thoughtful analysis that questions the basis for the official war on drugs. He uses current evidence and historical precedent to support legalization by showing that prohibition only makes a slight dent in drug use. Instead, as Miron persuasively demonstrates, the net effects of prohibition, both past and present, are to increase violence, enrich criminals, threaten civil liberties, and make drug users more ill. The right question for policy makers, he concludes, is not whether drugs are misused but whether the benefits of prohibition outweigh its exorbitant costs. All in all, this is a solidly researched and dispassionate discussion of a topic that is too often couched in moral and emotional terms.”
—Hubert Williams, President, Police Foundation; former Chief of Police, Newark, New Jersey
“With the publication of Drug War Crimes, Jeffrey Miron . . . elaborates his key argument that the social ills widely attributed to illegal drugs result largely from their prohibition, rather than from their use per se. . . . I found his analysis particularly insightful for its elucidation of various interacting dynamics of supply and demand in illegal drug markets, which usually escape consideration. Miron focuses on these dynamics to refute the common assumption that prohibition drives prices to stratospheric levels, and also uses them to demonstrate convincingly that the effects of prohibition on rates of drug consumption are negligible. . . . Drug War Crimes demands the attention of anyone concerned with drug policy. Given Miron’s ideological perspective, the book presents a head-on challenge to many conservative prohibitionists, who cannot ignore how their position on drugs conflicts with an otherwise uniform devotion to market deregulation and the logic of caveat emptor. In this regard, Miron unintentionally demonstrates that, in the end, the actions of drug users and governments alike defy the logic of utility and cost-benefit analysis. It is the sociopolitical, cultural, and moral complexity of this defiance that ultimately makes the crisis of drug use so profoundly formidable.”
—Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
“It is drug prohibition that causes most ills typically attributed to drugs. Prohibition’s ability to reduce drug use is modest, while incurring many negative consequences: increased violence and corruption, diminished respect for the law, reduced health for drug users (by denying medicine to seriously ill patients), money transfers to criminals and terrorists, distorted criminal justice incentives, and diminished civil liberties. . . . American tradition should make legalization—i.e., liberty— the preferred policy. Drug War Crimes is clear and logical—but will a majority of U.S. voters approach this issue with logical detachment?.”
—Future Survey
“Arguing that the war on drugs is a poor method of reducing drug use, Miron pulls together the evidence to show how prohibition has increased the level of street violence, expanded health risks for drug users, drained criminal justice resources away from more serious crimes, diminished civil liberties, restricted the medicinal uses of drugs, generated insurrection in drug-producing countries, and speeded the transfer of massive amounts of wealth to criminals. The costs, in short, have exceeded the benefits. Miron's answer: ‘Liberty and utility both recommend that prohibition end.’”
—The American Spectator
“For decades the U.S. government has attempted to suppress the use and sale of illicit substances. . . . Drug War Crimes persuasively argues that this campaign has been not just ineffective, but counterproductive. . . . While Miron might not convince the most dedicated drug warrior, he has presented a powerful case that the drug war is counterproductive. His evidence deserves a serious response. Americans no longer blithely assume that drug prohibition is making them safer and better off. Mr. Miron have presented a powerful case against the drug war. Drug prohibition is making Americans neither safer nor better off.”
—Washington Times About the Author Jeffrey A. Miron is professor of economics at Boston University. His articles on drug policy have appeared in Social Research, Journal of Law and Economics, The Boston Globe, and the London Observer. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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