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Breaking Better: Did Government Intervention Lead To Stronger Illegal Drugs?
Is it possible the war on drugs is to blame for increased potency in marijuana and for how crack ravaged inner cities in the 1980s? Prof. Adam Martin explains how the drug war has altered incentives for both drug buyers and sellers, leading them to favor higher potency drugs. This is what economists call the potency effect.
As penalties for purchasing marijuana go up, for example, the cost difference between high- and low-potency marijuana decreases and people may think that if they're risking a fine or jail time anyway they may as well buy the stronger drugs. Similarly, cartels and dealers have shifted their focus to high-value, high-potency drugs like cocaine as a result of the steeper fines and penalties for drug trafficking.
The potency effect is just one of many economic forces that make markets so complex. Public policies that alter the incentives people face - as the war on drugs does - can lead to unintended and even dangerous consequences.
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Stupid idea. Drugs are for losers. People stupid enough to take them deserve all the consequences they get.
Go away troll...
Apparently, he's not a coffee drinker ;-)
Just legalize it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXxwOiOX0HM
If you legalize it, it will be taxed.
Stayin true to my roots and stems and leaves and seeds...lol.
Lol. His life must be pretty sad, such a narrow range of experience and inflexible beliefs. I have to wonder if he has ever gotten laid.
Stupid idea. Sex is for losers. People stupid enough to exchange bodily fluids deserve all the consequences they get.
Lemmee guess.........
Ya'all is one of those nullo freaks I been hearin' about on de intertubes...........
Alchohol is far more dangerous than weed and we all know Prohibition worked great didn't it? If you drink alchohol than you are a merely a close minded hypocrite who does not support personal freedom. If weed were legal there would be far less Americans who are fucked up on "legal" SSRI's, painkillers, etc. The whole "War on Drugs" was simply big pharma using the tainted political process to preserve their monopoly on mind altering pills. But then again, fucking up American citizens on hard drugs makes it is easier for Government to implement their progressive agenda and control the sheeple.
Occam's razor would dictate that Big Pharma is only doing what is best for their profits...
Your conspiracy ideation suggests that you have an overactive imagination fueled by paranoia....
The drugs are better because the technology to grow/produce them is better. People have always wanted the good stuff, regardless of the legalities.........
Government intervention pushed organized crime towards a business model during Prohibition and towards a multinational model with drug illegalization.
Apparently there is nothing government can't make worse.
What happened to beer/wine consumption vs liquor consumption before and during prohibition? I bet people opted for the more concentrated stuff during prohibition.
Same concept applys to college football games; In parking lot were drinking is allowed majority drink beer; in stadium majority of drinks are liqour b/c beer to hard to sneak in and pint bottle has same effect.
Exactly. Read some Mencken about his prohibition experiences.
I just injected 3 whole marijuanas, am I gonna be OK?
You'll be fine.
http://www.hightimes.com/read/lethal-dose-half-ton-weed-kills-man
The lethal dose is rather extreme.
Too bad it all had to be injected anally.
the entry point wasn't the problem, having to use a coal shovel seemed to be the prime culprit
If "time is going by really, really, really....really slow" or you think you might be dead, you should call 911 like this cop did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5trBzVAzE
Well, duh...
Classic free market capitalism at work...
Let's not be stupid. Illicit narcotics profits are estimated at $300 billion plus per year. Nobody, not individuals, gangs nor governments leave that kind of money on the table. This is not a judgement, per se, it's human nature.
With numbers like this is it any small wonder our Government using the U.S. military "hat in hand" is graciously cultivating it in Afghanistan and having the banks like HSBC laundering it for them.
It's a "win win" for the Federal Government whether it's legalized or not. And for those States that have adopted legalization it is a boondoggle for taxation at a critical time when the job market continues to be in withdrawal mode -No pun intended.
..and those dumbfucks in Colorado just voted in a 25% tax on a fuckin' ditch weed.
Beam me up Scotty.
Seriously.
There really is no intelligent life on this batshit insane ball of rock.
Late 70's early 80's ......Iran/CONTRA et al...... Maybe the quality of drugs got better because the CIA was one of the major suppliers at the time (likely they still are).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
A person's right to imbibe their drug of choice is, logically, a person's right
Drug laws rank with religeon and government as control mechanisms.
Anyone who puts something into their body, whatever it is, should have information regarding risk and possible benefit.
Think vaccines - you know, mercury and all that.
Maybe we should go back to alcohol prohibition - alcohol kills way more that illegal drugs, as do prescripton drugs.
Maybe we should outlaw cars - the big killer.
Actually you should outlaw doctors, hospitals and prescription drugs. They kill over 200K per year.
Death is a business with identifiable variables that can be quantified, drooling drug addicts running around stealing anything not nailed down to pay for their habit is NOT a better business model than good old fashioned DEAD.
It has lead to a bigger & better black market. It will be interesting to see Colorado and the coming Marijuana black market. How many are actually willing to pay a 25% tax?
If the cost of doing business is at least 20% lower (sans taxes) in the open market than it is in the black market, then you'll start seeing people pay the 25% tax. A lot of the cost with controlled substances has to do with the risk that comes about from having to avoid police.
Bonuvasitch.
Ya'll beat me to it.
I would think most people who smoke weed (mind you legalizing it will not create hoards of new smokers) who pay the 25% tax as its likely less punitive than any fines or legal entanglements.
That said, if its legal in the state, the black market will certainly bigger and better (to your point). It will indeed be interesting. I wonder if there is a caveat about purchasing it on the street or from designated vendors. Admittedly I know little about what they are trying to do.
You young uns who have never tried a pure sativa are missing out on the electric high energy buzz. They are very hard to find nowdays. Sativa doesnt produce as many pounds per plant so it is not as cost effective as indica and indica hybrids, but pure sativas are the favorite of those in the know.
Aye and where is the "hash"? What happened to the potency of LSD? As these questions may indicate it has been a very long time.
In CA and CO, the new trend is Concentrates, aka Hash Oil. When you see people vaping e-cigs, don't assume there is liquid nicotine in those things. They are being used for vaping Hash Oil, anytime anywhere.
True.
It's not that weed got stronger, It's just that native land races got rarer in the modern commercial marketplace whereas before in the 60's, pure highlands Mexican Sativas, which take twice as long to flower than hybrids, were fairly common but the quantities were small.
Anyone who was lucky enough to run into some Panama Red or Acapulco Gold back in the wayback days would tell you most commercially available weed today couldn't touch that stuff for it's psychedelic properties.
C Popper:
The growers in CA and CO produce indoor and outdoor Hazes (Sativas) that can yield 10 lbs cured from a plant. That doesn't reflect with your statement "Sativa doesnt produce as many pounds per plant". The longer flowering cylce produces Monster colas. From an economics standpoint, people grow Indicas for the shorter flowering cycle which turns inventory faster.
Although, I certainly believe multiple government functions are absolutely vital to a healthy economy (such as providing national security, enforcing laws, interpreting laws, and writing laws [when necessary]); this drug effect -- if a true one [as would seem to be logical economic thinking] -- is similar to when any government-sponsored or government entity ever tries to do certain things.
Just like every other attempt at state planning, subsidizing, or otherwise effecting prices in a supposedly-free-market; it ends up achieving the exact opposite of what is claimed by its supporters [in the long-term if not the short-term].
Exactly right.
Case in point...we had a long discussion about pot legalization vs decriminalization (last year?). I was in the decriminalization camp and the statists came out of the woodwork (like the worms they are) in the legalization camp.
Guess what Colorado just did?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/06/colorado-approves-marijuana-taxes-but-turns-down-a-nearly-1-billion-income-tax-increase/
Dats right...your "legalized" pot is going up in price by at least 25% and your "illegal" pot is still going to be, well illegal without a government issued tax stamp.
Kids...whattya gonna do wif em ;-)
http://world.time.com/2013/10/02/canada-ushers-in-a-1-billion-privatized-medical-marijuana-industry/
Canada Rolls Out a ‘$1 Billion’ Privatized Medical Marijuana Industry
By Noah Rayman, October 02, 2013.
... “They treat pot like it’s plutonium,” says Blair Longley, head of the single-issue Marijuana Party ... Speaking to TIME, Longley says he’s concerned the market-based system, which nixes the right to cheaply grow marijuana at home, will make marijuana less affordable for patients. “We always knew that marijuana would get legalized in the worst possible way. It’s not a surprise that that’s what’s happening,” Longley says.
Proof (as if anyone needed it) that Med MJ is not about acess to a patient but about control and skimming taxes.
I expect the existing laws about self grown cannabis and caregivers to be slowly rescinded over time to favor commercial firms.
Govt. can't wet their beak if Cancer Granny grows in her backyard.
I certainly believe multiple government functions are absolutely vital to a healthy economy
I believe they are enemies of a healthy economy.
Not just enemies to a healthy economy- these fucking vermin are the enemy to anyone just wants to go about their life in a peaceful manner.
Milton Friedman said this years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsCC0LZxkY
Potency issue is addressed at 1:18
Milton's the man! [Sorry, no offence intended to any non-monetarist economists, ZH!]
Milton said a lot of great things.
Monetary arguments are a separate issue.
Well, you know, he is usually considered a monetarist and not an austrian economist [as I understand the position of ZH to be a little closer to].
Stronger drugs? Are they suggesting that the government did something good for a change?
It isn't possible!
unintended consequences?
i got me an education and i learned alchemy in the proce$$
since i paid my own way the co$t difference for quality was rarely justified
particularly since it was so easy to just add some pcp other ingredients and kick Up the potency
in hindsight there were more Interesting ways i could have spent my tIme
but that ignores opportunity co$t
There is a big difference between an economist and a chemist isn't there?
One deals in only theory. The other, in the practical & the theoretical ;-)
My "limited" experience with drugs in high school was honestly far better preparation than my "limited" experience with economic texts in college for professional banking
Lol,
Any weed dealer can tell you more about practical economics than any professor.
If a "hard" science such as quantum electrodynamics (QED) or the standard model of quantum physics is at one end of the scale [chemistry probably right in there somewhere immediately next to QED], and psychology or linguistics or something like that is at the other end of the Hard-Science / Non-Hard-Science-But-Still-Very-Difficult-Science spectrum, I would put economics somewhere more in the middle of those two. [No offense intended to any linguists or psychologists; you still do what is very much science; it just may not be quite as well-defined, mathematically.]
An engineer, a chemist, and an economist are marooned on an island, when a case of beans washes up on shore. No can opener, though.
"No problem" says the engineer "We'll find some sharp rocks, bash open the lids, and eat!"
"No" says the chemist "We could smash our fingers. Better to make a fire, heat the beans over it, and watch the can expand and open. Then we get hot food!"
"Nonsense" says the economist. "I have a much simpler solution".
Engineer and chemist immediately challenge him "Well, what is it?!".
"Easy" says the economist. "First, assume you have a can opener..."
mmm ...
War on drugs = government expansion. Of course big daddy will always be around when the people's last recourse for problem solving is; government. Big daddy needs all this moral sickness and messed up lives to justify continued expansion. Life as war, that's what we're living- a war to vanquish our humanity.
You see it in twittering teenagers, stressed out workers, incompetent mums, smartphone distracted youngsters, the benefits crowd, mentally restless students, feminists, human rights advocates and the whole circus who spend their life arguing over 'divisive' subjects: existence of God, homosexuality and whatever-the-fuck-the-sheeple-think-is-important. They're all knotted up so tight and they can't understand it. All of course 'victims' which big daddy will embrace with his overbearing arms, all with your money of course.
Life as war.
Hell, I need to get a hard-on and keep it to do the Woman; don't make it so good all we do is dance.
It took me along time to come around to the idea of legal drugs... I hate the stuff (and not for lack of an introduction in my younger years)... but the arguments pro are too strong to ignore...
1) While civilizations have a right and an obligation to regulate certain activities between people (for example, using drugs and driving)... what a person does with their own body, in their own private space is not open to government intervention in a free society... despite the moral implications...
2) Drug laws are not intended to effect the use of drugs, but rather to control the price, and provide an avenue for corruption.
3) To suggest that drug use would increase if drugs were legalized is a spurious arguement at best, as we already have a legalized drug industry. And in fact drug use is gradually being inforced on the population.
As much as it saddens me, society is not moral enough to regulate this kind of behavior...
Actually, your last sentence about morality is a self imposed restriction born out of common sense.
At the turn of the last century opioids and cocaine were made illegal because of the 'epidemic of addiction' that was claimed which amounted to approx. 3% of the population.
Fast forward 100 years of prohibition and the additional Drug Wars and Hundreds of Billions of dollars spent ( we'll ignore the billions in courts and jails so the amounts don't get too mind boggling) and the percentage of people addicted to drugs, legal or otherwise, has expanded to the astounding level of...3%.
The same as when it was legal.
Mal-investment?
Hopefully, Obama and the boys must add the increasing value of the drugs to the GDP. Never let a success go to waste.
Drugs, booze, gambling and government are the primary contributors to dependency and are all connected and reinforce each other. Dependency is the opposite of freedom, that thing that so many claim to desire, yet are always so willing to throw away for almost nothing. Cheaply indeed.
Perfect example of "Alchian's generalization."
"Alchian's generalization" states that when an equal amount of payment is added to two competitive goods, the price of the dearer one will fall relative to the cheaper one. Therefore, there will be a tendency for consumers to substitute the dearer one for the cheaper one.[4]
The arguments presented in this video are obviously correct, as statistical averages. However, I was able to obtain just as good marijuana products back in the 1960s and 1970s, as I can obtain anywhere now. It is myth that marijuana has gotten more potent. What has happened is that the average stuff for sale in the black market has gotten better and cheaper.
These kinds of abstract economic arguments apply generally to various other evolutionary ecology situations. For instance, the virulence of bacteria and viruses will develop depending upon their environmental conditions. Typically, the conditions to make a disease become less virulent tends to be counter-intuitive to an over-simplistic set of linear assumptions.
I repeat this link, which I found amusing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5t3j6xQLmY
Funny FKN Planet - Deek Jackson
Hour long collection of video essays.
At 14:45 mark begins one on drugs.
Segment ended at the 21:18 mark.
The OBVIOUS conclusion:
the money made from illegal drugs ends up in banks.
The drugs which could be made to be illegal, and could be maintained that way, are illegal because they make more money for banks. Always follow the money, and especially follow the money to its SOURCE! The international banksters effectively control the government of the USA, and they systematically promote every evil thing that they possibly can, in order to make more money. The biggest gangsters are the banksters. They benefit the most, all the way around, from having an endless war on some drugs. The government of the USA has worked hard to promote the war on some drugs all around the world. In that context, some obvious observations, made in Canadian Senator Nolin's 2002 report:
http://www.marijuanaparty.ca/IMG/pdf/summary-e.pdf
We conclude from these observations that the international regime for the control of psychoactive substances, beyond any moral or even racist roots it may initially have had, is first and foremost a system that reflects the geopolitics of North-South relations in the 20th century. Indeed, the strictest controls were placed on organic substances – the coca bush, the poppy and the cannabis plant – which are often part of the ancestral traditions of the countries where these plants originate, whereas the North's cultural products, tobacco and alcohol, were ignored and the synthetic substances produced by the North’s pharmaceutical industry were subject to regulation rather than prohibition.
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE DRUG WARS
WAS LIES, BACKED UP BY VIOLENCE,
THAT BENEFIT THE BIGGEST LIARS.
What actually happened was deliberate! It is not an accident that many of the worst drugs are legal, while many of the best drugs are illegal. That perversely inverse correlation is due to the basic situation that civilization is actually a system of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gang of criminals, which currently happen to be the international bankers. They benefit all the way around from having an endless war on some drugs, throughout every area in which that war is fought. The war on drugs provided excuses to build a fascist police state system, to protect the interests of the runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut that was built by the international bankers, to serve their own overall agenda. Slavery and racism segued into the war on drugs, while then the war on drugs segued into the war on terror. It was all debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, which have run away to become debt insanities, on the verge of death insanities, whereby the fascist plutocracy juggernaut is going to turn most people into its road kill.
As long as the basic monetary and taxation systems continue to have the same structure, then illegal drugs could only be "legalized" in the worst possible ways. What happened somewhat in Colorado's Amendment 64, and even worse in Washington state's Initiative 501, was the passing of a neoprohibitionist regime. Personally, I am in favour of marijuana continuing to be illegal, if the only alternative is fake "legalization," in which big corporations and governments continue to be able to extract the maximum profits from the consumers of those substances. The only change is from illegal cartels to legal cartels. Besides, criminalized cannabis was a lot more fun to consume that legalized pot will be. Indeed, after an initial spike in experimentation, the probable consequences of legalizing marijuana will be a decrease in consumption, after the false glamour of forbidden fruit is gone.
Anyways, the bigger picture is FOLLOW THE MONEY TO ITS SOURCE. It is senselessly stupid to talk about "legalization" unless one understands how and why it was made illegal in the first place. It was BECAUSE hemp is the single best plant on the planet for people, for food, fiber, fun and medicine, that the laws asserted that "marijuana is almost as bad as murder." That situation was only possible due to the ways that the funding of politics controls what the political processes really end up doing. Since the international banksters took control over the monetary systems, and promoted a taxation system that would enforce their frauds, everything within the American systems, which dominated global systems, were legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which were deliberately designed to benefit the biggest bankers, and the corporations that grew up around those banks.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do not understand those social facts. Indeed, one of the reasons why I bother to amuse myself on Zero Hedge is that there are a few readers here who do understand those social facts. However, overall, there is nothing practically possible to do to fix any of these runaway social insanities. The overwhelming vast majority of North Americans have been reduced to Zombie Sheeple. Especially most of the middle class are mainstream morons, who have been voting for politicians who are deliberately destroying them. Thus, the middle class have been brainwashed to pay for endlessly losing the war against some drugs, just like they have been tricked to pay for many other wars whose real consequences are to destroy the members of that middle class.
Very recently, literally within the last year, the public opinion polls in the USA have titled towards being in favour of legalization:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165539/first-time-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana.aspx
For First Time, Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana
Support surged 10 percentage points in past year, to 58%
By Art Swift, October 22, 2013.
However, those people are still mostly brainwashed to believe in the biggest bullies bullshit, and therefore, still compromise too much with the big lies. I use the analogy of the paradigm shift regarding whether one believes that the world is flat, versus believes that the world is round. The lies about marijuana, referred to as "reefer madness" were like assertions that the planet Earth was flat. Hemp Truth is that cannabis is the single best plant on the planet for people, which has never killed anyone ever. However, the laws were based upon the claims that "marijuana is almost as bad a murder." The laws were based upon asserting that marijuana was an addictive narcotic, that drove people criminally insane and killed them.
The currently bogus forms of fake "legalization" are like a compromise to say that the Earth is a big cube. That is, the fake "legalization" laws are based upon saying that marijuana is not so bad, and so, should not be so illegal. The radical truth is that hemp is good, and should again become one of the most widely and generally cultivated of plants. I.e., most of the mainstream marijuana legalization movements regard it as being politically practical to present their case as being a compromise with those who are saying that the world is flat, by saying instead that the world is a big cube, instead of saying that the world is round. The mainstream marijuana legalization movements are dominated by typical mainstream morons. They tend to deliberately refuse to face the facts about the banksters, and therefore, the monetary and taxation systems. They therefore promote neoprohibitionist regimes, which barely make anything any better. Unfortunately, since our society is still dominated by mainstream morons, who have been brainwashed to believe in the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, it is apparently NOT practical to try to tell them more radical truth about anything.
Indeed, that is I why I have been mostly wasting my time posting comments on Zero Hedge, because there are a few people who read here that will understand what I am saying, whereas, the vast majority of the rest of the population not only will not understand, but also will not want to understand.
Have you actually tried the new weed?
If so you either got the best stuff available in your teenage years or the local pimps in your area are ripping you off big time.
From what I hear this is right on- not of course from any personal experiance, just hearsay.
For the record Mr. NSA this is all hearsay and I have no idea of what I am talking about.
Well, luckylogger, I have usually enjoyed the best connections, which would enable me to buy the best marijuana products. However, these days I tend to no longer enjoy getting high, because I no longer have the slightest shred of idealism or optimist left towards the future. When I was younger, I had tons of fun from drugs. I lived outside the law for decades, yet never got any criminal record, despite having hundreds of different conflicts with police, at different times, to different levels of severity.
The biggest problem I have NOW is that the more I learned, the worse it got. After spending several decades learning about politics, I find that I can no longer get high, because I now find it practically impossible to indulge in any fantasies about how the world might get better, or how I might be able to do something which might make it better. These days, I am practically 100% convinced that the runaway social systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, are terminal social sicknesses and insanities, which are NOT going to be cured, and for which there are NO practically possible treatments.
My group have always joked, although it was probably true, that the secret police trainees would practice on us, since otherwise we were too insignificant to matter. Generally speaking, that is my overall attitude towards the NSA, and other similar toxic alphabet soup of secret police government agencies in North America. I have always presumed that my communications were being intercepted and recorded. However, I have also presumed that I was personally too insignificant for the authorities to care about, since, if I imagine myself in their place, that would be my attitude towards myself too.
After going to school for a couple dozen years, and being taught to respect evidence and logic, and the scientific methods, it has been quite difficult for me to gradually adapt to the anthropological and sociological FACTS that the real world is almost totally controlled by huge lies, backed up with lots of violence, in which context, evidence and logical arguments are pretty well irrelevant, since they simply get deliberately ignored, while the established systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, roll on ... Since I have been more and more forced to face those FACTS, especially since about 2008, as objective realities, I find that I no longer enjoy getting high, and therefore, rarely indulge in drugs to try to get high anymore, because I am no longer have any fun, since I have become way too nearly 100% pessimistic, as based on my best objective assessment of the facts.
I WISH I could time-warp back to the past, when I was younger, and more ignorant, and therefore, was able to be more idealistic and optimistic about the possible future. However, these days, despite easily being able to obtain the highest quality drugs, if I wanted to, I find that I no longer want to, for those reasons I outlined above.
Well my friend- I think you should stop and smell the flowers. Before they get smashed. My recommendation to you is to find that good stuff and take a deep breath and figure out what you can change and do not worry about what you cannot change. I tell my wife the same thing and I hear screaming about how fuked up everything is.
Good luck and hopefully things will get rosier everyday. Think about what you have to look forward to:
obama care
NSA listening in to see if the sex meets govt standards
some voyager in your back yard checking up on you so they can put you in jail and pay off the prison union that needs more people. Maybe a year in jail for right turn signal "failure to use".
I would go on and on but i am burning dinner and too drunk to get there so good luck.............................
take a deep breath and figure out what you can change and do not worry about what you cannot change.
Kinda like:
God,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can, and
The wisdom to know the difference.
"After going to school for a couple dozen years,"
I think I've found the problem. Psychic damage.
Load the bong and chill out.
the big issue i see towards legalizing (instead of decrimializing) more potent drugs such as heroin and pcp is that the users of these drugs, are not just "doing it in the privacy of there own homes" These people themselves become criminals as well, the men will rob teenages, mom whatever, while the women end up as prostitutes
Not necessarily, Little Boots, since, after being completely legalized, almost all those drugs would be extremely cheap. You mistake the effects of the prohibition for being the effects of the drugs themselves. (See my comment above in order to gain some perspective regarding what is really going on.)
I maintain the redneck radical approach to self-destructive drug "addicts." I say, give them abundance, and have them adapt to that. Either commit suicide from an overdose, or use a greater amount of information, and higher consciousness, in order to use drugs with a better level of informed consent regarding what one is doing to one's self and others. Of course, it is not possible to die from an overdose of the best drugs, such as marijuana and magic mushrooms, as like most of the other psychedelic drugs, but only possible to die from an overdose of some of the drugs. Clearly, it is possible to die from an overdose of opiate drugs. However, it is more possible to learn to live with chronic opiate addictions than it is to live with chronic alcohol or tobacco addictions. Generally, I am not in favour of co-dependencies with insanely suicidal individuals, no more than I like to agree with stupidity as that being some kind of misguided compassion. The more that one can die from an overdose, the more dangerous a drug is, and the more that informed consent becomes an important principle. Anyone who has been following my series of comments on Zero Hedge will know that I usually advocate for better death controls, with respect to all political problems. I have that same redneck radical attitude towards drug addiction problems too.
However, in the real world, there usually was only somewhere between 1% to 2% of the population who tended to have personal problems which manifested as self-destructive drug "addiction." That has tended to stay the same, regardless of the degree to which those drugs were illegal, or how much those prohibitions were enforced. The only thing that changed was that prohibition made successful treatment and recovery much more difficult. Generally speaking, I despise and dislike most of the imprisonment and treatment industries that have grown up around the huge lies promoted about some drugs.
P.S.
Here is a link to one of my favourite little articles about so-called "drug addiction:"
http://www.marijuanaparty.ca/article.php3?id_article=440
and so keeping the "more potent drugs" illegal does what to discourage a drug-addict from turning towards crime, such as theft and prostitution, to support thier habit ??
Heroin, gram for gram, is actually only a fraction of the potency of oxycodone (ie: Oxycontin) or hydromorphone (ie: Dilaudid). And has nothing on the sheer intoxicating potency of the synthetic drugs like fentanyl, alprazolam (Xanax), triazolam (Halcion), etc. which are handed out like candy by prescription in much of the country. If anything, heroin is the weaker cousin of them all.
Missing the point, buddy. At $100/g for heroin, you are paying probably $1/gm for the actual smack, and $99/g for the risk premium. If you could get your junk for $5/day, why would you need to rob/steal/prostitute yourself? That's not to say that some people won't become complete derelicts on drugs, but there are people who are complete derelicts on booze. Far better to legalize, tax, and put the tax money into rehab for those who want it.
If one was really cynical, one would also offer junkies 100% pure 'hot shots' - labelled as exactly that - that would probably kill them. From what I've read, it's the derelict junkie's wet dream - 30 seconds of incredible high, followed by quick death. Junkie gets what he wants, societal trash is removed, object lesson in place for others.
The dipshit "eCONomist" in the video provides no explanation of his "potency effect" nonsense because its bullshit just like many other macro theories. The potency has risen in response to an increased demand for higher potency drugs, legality has nothing to do with it. Capitalism is the reason, the uninhibited price discovery/equilibrium of a black market, or why can Starbucks charge $4 for a cup of coffee.
" I decided to purchase the really good blow because, hey , if I'm gonna get busted it might as well be for a really good sack of blow for twice the price, right?", said no one ever...
Wrong on all accounts.
First, let's see your proof on increases in demand. Try measuring demand for us.
Second, he doesn't have to spell out a simple math principle to you (it's not even much of an economic argument.)
On to the actual reason for the potency effect. It has little to do with demand. It has to do with suppliers. If the cost of bringing your goods to
market increase, you improve the concentration of delivered goods to increase your unit margins. The costs to transport are fixed, you pick the higher margin product to sell.
It's why in a war zone or a trade embargo, you see more luxury goods smuggled into the country than basic essentials. The luxury goods are higher margin to give you the higher return against the fixed probably of getting caught smuggling.
I can't disagree with your statements within the context as you have presented them. But, It is the market price that is fixed, so the higher potency drugs would have a smaller margin because of an increased cost of goods sold, right? An ounce of marijuana and an 8-ball of coke costs the same today as it did 20 years ago, so if a supplier's product has not been differentiated with a higher potency, revenue would be lost to competing supplier that has. Can demand be measured by price-elasticity? Can drug use determine demand? More people using drugs could have an impact on demand for drugs. There are national surveys but I guess its irrelevant without chemical verification.
Dude. If I, as a consumer, am going to risk forfeiture of my car, my house, and god knows what else to the rapacious DEA/local LE, whenever I purchase conscious-altering substances, AM I NOT RATIONALLY GOING TO MAKE THOSE PURCHASES AS INFREQUENT AS POSSIBLE? Today's killer weed only needs two bong hits for a nice evening; my college day skunk would have us smoking three or four joints. A half ounce that used to last me a couple of weekends now lasts me - literally - months.
OTOH, I was reading a few months back that some people don't want powerful pot; they feel they get too stoned too quickly. In a free market, there would be many such choices available; in a black market, it's usually Hobson's.
Likely the rate of sobriety would skyrocket should our governments start a war against it.
Yeah, force kids to get high in school, and write an essay about that, and they probably will never want to do it again.
And instead of giving people anal probes, they would be giving them drug enemas.
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3210356.shtml#.UnsZZvE0IXc
I gave up everything. I figure I won't be able to get it when the SHTF so why not just get rid of the bad habits now.
Reminds me of a story about a friend about 60 or so and I were sitting around a campfire at a party and the kids were smoking the local weed. My friend took one hit and he passed out and I had to catch him before he it the ground. Then he got up again and tried to get up the same thing happened. Luckly it was just the weed. Watch out that shit will kick your ass!
Not only this, but it raised the price of drugs, meaning that the suppliers could spend more on R&D and supply chains towards producing purer product.
I know it may seem odd to think of drug dealers and the drug supply chain as a business, but that's exactly what it is.
The war on drugs has been a complete and utter failure, which can only mean that the govt. will probably spend moar money on the program. That's the way our govt. works. If a policy is a failure, the only reason it could possibly be a failure is because not enough of your money was spent on their foolish policies ie welfare, EBT, money to countries in the middleeast, Green Energy, Obamacare, etc...
This makes complete sense. The same effect occurred during alcohol prohibition where a nation of predominantly beer drinkers transitioned to hard liquor drinkers because the much greater alcohol percentage in hard liquor made it more volumentrically advantageous to smuggle and generated higher profits per volume. Only goes to show how the typical ignorance of history prevents logical policies and produces unintended consequences.