The Economic Anatomy of a Drug War: Criminal Justice in the Commons.

Thornton, Mark

It would be marvelous if every prohibitionist in America could have a copy of Rasmussen and Benson's (R&B) outstanding new book that provides a complete autopsy of this public policy failure. Unfortunately, a high percentage of prohibitionists are poorly educated with many not venturing beyond the sport section of the newspaper or romance novels [1]. I can, however, highly recommend this book to economists and specialists in crime and drug policy.

The use of economic principles, economic theory, policy analysis, and historical interpretation in R&B will be like sweet music to the ears of economists. Their book illustrates how the foundations of economic theory (scarcity, opportunity costs, and property rights) can be employed to analyze a public policy to yield a comprehensive understanding of an otherwise illogical public policy.

Even specialists in crime and drug policy have a great deal to learn from this book. R&B get to the bottom of the murky waters of "addiction," rigorously investigate the linkages between drugs and crime, provide a comprehensive account of the effects of drug law enforcement, and explore the fundamental weakness of our criminal justice system. The Economic Anatomy of a Drug War is simply the most compelling book on the war on drugs, including my own [2].

R&B begin their analysis by clearing the debate of political rhetoric and by demonstrating that our criminal justice system is a common property resource. They show that our criminal justice system is susceptible to the problems of the commons: the system tends to get overused, the quality of production decreases, and, in the limit, the total social value of the resources are reduced to zero. We appear to be rapidly approaching that limit given our extremely high crime rates and the degeneration of respect for law and order that has taken place in society.

While R&B examine all the essential aspects of the drug war and support their analysis with evidence, the foundation of the book rests on their (and their coauthors') previously published technical research. Among the more important findings are that increases in drug enforcement encourages crime by reducing the probability of arrest. Increased enforcement also knocks drug dealers out of spatial equilibrium, the restoration of which requires violent behavior on the part of drug dealers.

Using the confiscated assets of drug kingpins to help finance the war on drags was suppose to be the salvation of drug prohibition. R&B demonstrate that the ability to confiscate the property of drug offenders has biased the behavior of police, resulted in a reduced likelihood of apprehension for property and other crimes, and resulted in higher rates of property crime. In fact, R&B date the beginning of the current war on drugs to 1984 when federal law was altered to allow for the confiscation of the property of suspected drug dealers (drug use was declining and opinion polls showed little interest in the drug issue at this time). The drug war leveled off in 1989 when public interest in the subject was at its zenith. By 1989, minors were being enlisted in large numbers to sell drugs, marijuana growers were using government land to grow their crops, and drug dealers were using rented houses, cars, and planes to circumvent property confiscation.

Their research generally supports the economic perspective on crime, but they found that longer prison sentences were not an effective deterrent for drug offenders. They also show that criminals with long histories of felony convictions and no job were more likely to be sentenced to probation, while drug law violators (who were more likely to have jobs and marriages) were more likely to receive prison sentences.

The general lesson of R&B is that "the overall results of drug enforcement policy are far different from results policymakers expect" and "far different from those expected by the citizenry". For example, the success in reducing the supply of marijuana led to the substitution of cocaine and the spread of crack cocaine.

Approaching the final chapter, I began to worry that I had not found anything critical to say of the book. However, in their conclusion, R&B rule out legalization based on its lack of political feasibility and recommend that drug policy should be decentralized to allow for a process of experimentation, a conclusion that was, to say the least, disappointing. It was after all that same process of local control and experimentation that eventually resulted in the national prolibitions of alcohol, cocaine, narcotics, and marijuana in the first place.

I agree with W. H. Hurt that in terms of policy espousal, economists should champion the best possible solution and only consider political viability - "the scholar's deadly sin" - last, if at all. Politicians, interest groups, and bureaucrats will generally provide all the gradualism and experimentation you could ever want [3].

To be fair, R&B's recommendations are constrained by their model of the criminal justice system as a common property problem. Ironically, this constraint on drug policy recommendations actually provides for a much more fundamental criticism of our criminal justice system in general.

Police, judges, prosecutors, district attorneys, and the general public exploit the criminal justice system because they do not have to pay the full cost of using the common property resource. Therefore, the war on drugs only exacerbates a preexisting institutional problem which cannot be solved with additional resources. Only a reorganization of our criminal justice system along lines suggested by Benson would completely solve this problem [4].

Perhaps criminal justice and respect for law and order will degenerate far enough and private sector justice and security industries will expand adequately enough to make such a radical reorganization appear politically feasible. Such prospects, however, make drug legalization seem a likely and pragmatic step.

References

1. Thornton, Mark. "The Public Choice of Drug Relegalization." In New Frontiers in Drug Policy, edited by Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese. Washington, DC: Drug Policy Foundation, 1991. Pp, 419-21.

2. Thornton, Mark. The Economics of prohibition. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1991.

3. Hurt, W. H. Politically Impossible... ? Institute of Economic Affairs, 1971, p. 98-99.

4. Benson, Bruce L. The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1990.

Mark Thornton Auburn University