Another flash post:
If anyone has the time and interest, I just finished listening to a two dueling lectures of the journalist Misha Glenny (the author of McMafia, which I believe you have read Dave, though I have not) and the former prosecutor Michael Hartmann, who is now an adviser to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. I recommend it. The title of the lecture, The War On Drugs: An Upper or Downer for Development?, (British humor is so dry and sophisticated) characterizes the subject a little too narrowly. It's really a much broader legalization versus prohibition argument and, more importantly, it's a really interesting one.
Leave a comment if any of you get around to listening to it. I'd be curious to know what you think.
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Maybe I am overly sympathetic to the legalization argument, but Hartmann's position sounds as if it is argued far more weakly than Glenny's. What I really mean is that Hartmann is proceeding from a pre-analytic decision that is not necessarily shared by his audience, including myself: that the use of drugs recreationally is necessarily a bad thing. His repeated refrain of 'will legalization raise drug use?' has little resonance with me, since more people using drugs that are of a higher quality doesn't strike me as a social ill, if it were even true that drug use would increase.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I sympathize with his position. It is plainly shocking to think that, say, one could buy MDMA from a pharmacy, and that its manufacturer would be a publicly traded company, to say nothing of legal purchases of heroin, cocaine or methamphetamines. There is something viscerally repugnant about the thought. For myself, I know that that is largely due to an internalized taboo against drug use. I have no similar taboo with regards alcohol, for instance, and so just the opposite--that I couldn't get a handle of Bushmills from the Japanese guy around the corner--is unthinkable.
My gut tells me that the normalization of drug use (and their distancing from the word 'drug' itself) would probably result in a differing pattern of usage that might lead to an absolute drop in the number of drug users, or at least numerical stability married to safer substances and a better environment. That, however, I say without reference to any significant empirical evidence, and so I'm willing to hold my tongue until I'm positive that Hartmann's camp is, in fact, in the wrong.
No, I think you might be right. And Glenny's response, that the potential problem of heroin advertisements and easy access (I for one cannot say with any degree of confidence that I would not opt to try heroin if it was readily available) is not a problem of legalization, but regulation. To complain that the alternative to the War on Drugs is complimentary crack vials at check-out constructs a false argument. The more logical alternative that Glenny proposes is decriminalization and extreme regulation.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, in light of yesterday's Court decision, for any policy hypothetical it might always be best to assume the highest degree of corporate influence and therefore the barest of regulation.
So I'm with you, Lion. But one of the reasons I posted it is because Hartmann's position was a bit more interesting than the standard anti-drug crusader's; his persuasiveness (even if he didn't necessarily persuade me) surprised me. He obviously makes a pretty major distinction between low-harm drugs on the one hand and, say, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc, on the other. And based on a comment he threw away at the very end of lecture, it doesn't even seem like he has any major contention with the idea of decriminalization of consumption a la Portugal, where those who use drugs of over a certain amount are fined and dragged before a panel of professionals for evaluation of their addiction. And if I'm not mistaken, drug use is still down there. What he is not proposing is abandoning the idea of going after major production and distribution centers with the big guns or opening up the drug market to government inspection (but I guess in his mind, a kind of unofficial sanction). Which is way more nuanced a view than I'm used to hearing from that side.
I don't want to cast aspersions on the podcast. It was excellent and it selected excellent proponents of each case. I suppose it comes down to the fact that Hartmann, however well-intentioned, is fighting a battle that the last thirty years has proved is not really winnable. He's right, I think, to suspect the extreme libertarian argument, and there would almost certainly be fallout from any complete legalization that was not accompanied by robust and intelligently fashioned regulations.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the next time the LSE visits the subject they might discuss what those regulations could look like. Is there any more information on what measures have been adopted in Portugal? I'd be curious to know how long their drug policy has been in place and whether or not enough time has passed that the results are truly significant.
I haven't read too much about Portugal, but a quick google search tells me that the decriminalization program has been in effect since 2001. Both Hartmann and Glenny offer their respective criticisms towards the end of the recording, Hartmann insisting that the social impact of the decriminalization of consumption will not look anything like that of outright legalization and Glenny saying that letting consumers off while still chasing after the sellers still misses the major point, that legalization allows for regulation.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I guess you probably heard that, but there it is if anyone else is reading.
Also, I didn't think you were being a dick about the podcast. That didn't cross my mind.