Apparently, the workers who distill the sassafras oil also eat and sell endangered species. Great.
Back in the day, when I was more attuned to these things, people didn't seem to think much about the social and environmental effects of illicit drug use. That always seemed to me to be an odd blind spot: I knew plenty of people who worked for various good causes by day, and supported organizations that helped to destroy inner-city neighborhoods by night, for instance, without noticing the conflict between their principles and their use of cocaine. I suspect that that has changed. I hope so.
Well, I recommend that you not buy Thai ecstasy, which is apparently where the questionable sassafrass oil is going. Luckily, I am under the impression that most American ecstasy is prepared in illegal Mexican facilities, which make their ecstasy the old fashioned way--with toxic chemicals.
More to the point, it's not enough to note that this is bad; you need a reasonable picture of the world absent the drug trade. And it's not clear to me that it's better. First of all, the high profitability of the sassafrass oil is undoubtedly making some Cambodians richer. I've been to Cambodia. They live in dire, appalling poverty, and making them richer is something we should all be trying to do by whatever means come to hand. So I'd say you have to weigh their welfare against that of the rare trees. My instinct is to side with the poverty-stricken humans.
As to whether one should trade in US black markets for drugs, knowing that those markets create violence--well, I'm somewhat skeptical that Hilzoy is acquainted with many of the people who frequent the really violence-prone drug markets, which tend to specialize in crystal meth and crack. I know people who have done both, but not more than once or twice, because they had plans that didn't involve sleeping in a squat in West Baltimore. The market for marijuana, the drug of choice for most well meaning young leftists, is not quite the same as the drug markets in The Wire.
Most people who smoke crack and/or crystal meth regularly are not going to worry about the social implications, because they're too worried about their teeth falling out or their boss firing them. My understanding is that the violence in the powder cocaine market tends to happen further up the supply chain, like in Colombia, where the trade is in kilos and hundredweights, not grams. The marginal contribution of cocaine purchased the way most poor young leftie larvae buy it--a gram or two for special occasions*--is probably not worth worrying about, any more than you worry about your beach vacation's contribution to coastline erosion.
The pernicious effects of the drug trade, both at home and abroad, are a very good reason to support legalization--they're mostly side effects of the black market profits. And there are some markets, like that for crystal meth, that I'd recommend you stay out of for all sorts of reasons. But as for more anodyne drugs . . . well, I'm not going to tell you to take drugs. But if you decide to, I wouldn't worry too much about the sassafrass trees.
* I mean, those who do. Most such people of my acquaintance don't. But a propos of nothing, isn't it nice that our young people have such an attractive way to learn the metric system?
I'll note here the cocaine seems to be the drug of choice of the right, not the left. Lefties, imo, go for hallicinogens and marijuana; righties for alcolhol and cocaine. I'm wondering what this says about personality types?
Nice try, but Obsidian Wings' policy is to only engage intellectuals and politicians.
...isn't it nice that our young people have such an attractive way to learn the metric system?
ROTFLMAO!
But back to legalization. It seems to me that any sensible conservative would support it -- which probably says something about how sensible some so-called conservatives are.
- Conservatives favor learning from the mistakes of the past. We demonstrated with Prohibition that making something illegal doesn't work, and has lots of major negative externalities as well.
- Conservatives favor balanced budgets and low taxes. The amount of money we are spending on prisons (not to mention the rest of the legal system) for drug offenders would go a long way towards balancing a lot of state budgets on substantially lower tax rates.
- Conservatives are not big fans of unions, especially public sector unions with big lobbying budgets. Of which the Prison Guards Union are rapidly becoming a stunning example (at least here in California).
Too bad the reality-challenged moralists (supported by the prison guards) show every sign of maintaining their hold on the politics of the issue.
P.S. Just to be clear, I have never used drugs personally. And am severely allergic to even second-hand marijuana smoke. So I have no stake on the users' side. Just an ability to see the folly of bad public policy.
"making them richer is something we should all be trying to do by whatever means come to hand"
No, we should be trying to do it right. Why are they so poor? There are plenty of cases in Asia that should show us that it's largely bad government - no rule of law, property rights, etc. Does a thriving illegal drug trade (or illegal endangered-species trade) tend to encourage the development of the rule of law? I wouldn't think so.
It's easy to focus on short term fixes. That's why international aid has been so backwards for so long, where we paid dictators based on how much poverty they were able to produce. We should be looking across many countries for what has worked in terms of modern political, legal and economic technology, and should be helping and pressuring poor countries to adopt international best practices. Encouraging the illegal drug and endangered-species trade in Cambodia is not the best way to help them.
My daughter was getting a lot of wreckless driving tickets, but I figured instead of telling her its wrong I'd just send her to an offensive driving school so she could drive with abandon as safely as possible.
My son was breaking into a lot of people's homes, but I figured he could end up getting shot, so I showed him how to identify the homes of people less likely to own firearms and break into those places instead.
The kids at school are having sex and at risk of getting diseases and even worse, bringing innocent children into this world that will never have the chance to grow up in a proper environment with two loving and committed parents. So I figured we should pass out condoms to everyone to spare ourselves the trouble.
Kids are doing drugs these days and all sorts of illicit things are happening as a part of the drug trade so I figured we should legalize it and get rid of those nasty illicit things.
People were gambling a lot and having sex with prostitutes so I figured we should legalize those things and then all those bad things on the periphery associated with gambling will go away. That's why Las Vegas is such a clean, crime free environment.
Rick James was a Republican?
Children make bad choices, so adults shouldn't be allowed to make choices either.
If you legalized would you still get the metric benefit? I buy my cane sugar in ounces and pounds. Of course I buy my Drambuie in mL so maybe, maybe not.
Nice try, but Obsidian Wings' policy is to only engage intellectuals and politicians.
Well, that ought to cover the entire spectrum, then.
As always, The Onion is way ahead of us:
"Metric System Thriving In Nation's Inner Cities"
Hey sam, remember when we repealed prohibition?
"Apparently, the workers who distill the sassafras oil also eat and sell endangered species. Great."
That actually is pretty disturbing. What are they going to do for food after they eat the last one?
SoV, I'd guess that conservatives have higher incidence of high anxiety and ADD and that liberals have higher incidence of dissociated perception.
My model is that the higher rate of consumption is due to self medication. Perhaps the left lack insight (via Marginalrevolution comments):
Sam,
Your daughter's driving is an inherent danger to others. Were she unable to control her dangerous behavior, an offensive driving school would reduce the potential harm her driving creates for herself and others. It's the responsible thing to do in that case.
Your son is violating the property rights of others. If he were only stealing from himself (maybe by taking out 2nd, 3rd and 4th mortgages on his home, or withdrawing precipitously from his 401K) then helping him manage his finances would be the intelligent thing to do.
If you oppose condoms for kids in school, well, then you just hate children. You certainly hate teenagers who are gettin' some (and if you didn't have sex when you were a teen, well, I'm sorry you feel for that save yourself for marriage canard!) and your requiring that they get preggers and/or STIs because you prefer ignorance to information.
Yes, drugs, gambling and prostitution should all be legal, well-regulated, and there will still be problems associated with them. But those problems will pale in comparision to the problems we have now. In fact, they're exactly the same problems we have now, minus the felony conviction.
Legalization is not a pancea. People will still make self-destructive choices. But the law cannot protect us from ourselves.
Why do we have to choose between improving the lives of poor people and protecting their environment. Rich people in rich countries are the ones who want to protect the environment in poor countries, therefore rich people in rich countries should pay the costs. Besides many environmentally harmful activities are only economically benificial in the very short term. Most of them are actually government activities or externalities that governments refuse to price into the market.
Megan: "I'm somewhat skeptical that Hilzoy is acquainted with many of the people who frequent the really violence-prone drug markets, which tend to specialize in crystal meth and crack."
Here it might help to know that I'm in my late 40s, which means that while I have never used cocaine myself, I was a young adult in the early 80s, during the cocaine years. I absolutely knew such people.
On the social effects of drug use, I think Hilzoy is dead on, actually. This is separate from the question of legalization. It's an issue of personal choice: given that there is violence in drug markets, do you really want to be subsidizing the gang twenty blocks from your house? I find it hypocritical that the same people who buy fair-trade coffee or conflict-free diamonds could also use cocaine.
That "the marginal contribution ... is probably not worth worrying about" seems a little irrelevant to me. That's true of almost all consumption choices. The marginal contribution of a ham sandwich isn't nearly enough to save a pig -- and yet some people are still vegetarians. Is it so irrational to think, "I don't want to contribute to an institution that kills kids in my city"?
But a propos of nothing, isn't it nice that our young people have such an attractive way to learn the metric system?
Hilarious, and totally true. What college student doesn't know that there are 3.5 grams in an eighth of an ounce?
How does one actually legalize heroin? Or crack cocaine? Or crystal meth? Where would the addict buy it? At the nearby 24 hour Walgreen's? Would that be over the counter or would a prescription be required? What doctors would provide the scripts and would that also be covered by Obama's national health plan or would insurance companies be required to offer crystal meth on their prescription drug coverage plans? Medicare, Medicaid, would they also cover these drugs?
Since most addicts are not successful,employed individuals would they be required to be covered by unemployment insurance? Disability insurance? Welfare?
Legalizing drugs is a bit like legalizing gambling. While there is no doubt that there always was a degree of illegal gambling there is far more gambling now where it is legal than there was in those areas before legalization. Does government need to encourage even more addiction?
I've known plenty of people who smoked crystal meth and managed to hold down challenging jobs (at big law firms/startups/Google). Hell, during my "bad days" when I used to party I was in a meeting (high on meth) where I made some interesting points and it came back to me that the head of the litigation group was impressed with my intelligence. This isn't to promote crystal meth (and I haven't gone near it for quite some time). It is a horrible drug and it's long term effects far outweigh any short term benefits (which your average person picks up on pretty quick--you can't chase the high/drugs don't work/yada yada). I'm simply saying that the OMG METH WILL KILL US ALL propaganda is untrue. I suspect the people who crashed and burned on meth were just choosing a better drug than the legal options (glue, alcohol) to destroy their lives.
"Legalizing drugs is a bit like legalizing gambling. While there is no doubt that there always was a degree of illegal gambling there is far more gambling now where it is legal than there was in those areas before legalization. Does government need to encourage even more addiction?
Posted by cubanbob | July 24, 2008 1:14 AM"
Or maybe drugs are more like alcohol, which is... a drug. Remember how great it was when Prohibition was enacted? Well, only Al Capone remembered that. Personally, I would rather live in a city or state where it is legal to buy alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, but casino gambling is illegal. The negative externalities of keeping some activities illegal (like smoking pot) are bigger than for other activities (murder, rape). I mean, someone can get addicted to Big Mac's, but no one is seriously arguing that Big Macs should be banned by the government. Similarly, most people who would be against banning Big Macs would also be for keeping murder, rape, kidnapping, etc. illegal. Just because some bad things need to be illegal doesn't mean all bad things should be illegal.
Just because some bad things need to be illegal doesn't mean all bad things should be illegal.
Well, yeah. The debate is over which bad things should be illegal. Is crack like robbery or like spitting on the sidewalk? And it's fairly obvious that the people winning this debate with respect to drugs are the restrictionists. It's that whole self-government thing which libertarians have such trouble wrapping their heads around.
Um. Ummmm. Externalities?? What Externalities?? I thought we all took coke so we didn't need to deal?
Geez, as a 40something old phart who saw plenty of cocaine being used by upperclass types during his four years as an Ivy undergrad back in the Bright Lights Big City era, I sort of thought that powder cocaine use among young intellectual types had largely been superceded by Adderall et al at this point.
Seriously.
If you think there's some huge difference in the effects, you haven't tried 'em both.
"I'll note here the cocaine seems to be the drug of choice of the right, not the left."
There may be some truth to this, but I'll mention Hollywood as a counter-example.
I love opiates (and abuse them whenever I get a scrip although once the scrip is out I don't seek them--when I broke my hand I was high for two weeks and it was awesome). If I could legally buy heroin at my local liquor store I would probably be a junkie so my natural libertarian instincts are somewhat countered by self interest--I'm better off that it is a dangerous hassle to procure the stuff. That said, I think I'd rather be a legal junkie than a legal alcoholic.
I'm boycotting illegal drugs as a protest until they're legallized.
Njorl,
Plus one. Only 1.4 million to go until we can compete with Newt with his "drill now" campaign. I think Newt has an unfair advantage, because to a lot of people, drilling is just sexual expression.
Megan : I don't think you can seperate the market for crack cocaine and weed that easily. In a small college town weed may be the backbone of the industry, subsidising the distribution and transport of cocaine/crystal meth/etc. If young lefty students are only buying occasionally for special events, a much smaller network of full t ime dealers would exist, perhaps none.
But with weed they have a constant, ( if lower margin business ), and a good reason to continue as dealers.
hmm.. thank you very much. usefull information