[554] in libertarians
Laissez Faire Book News: ECONOMIC ANATOMY OF A DRUG WAR
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Whitten)
Tue Jan 10 10:29:47 1995
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 10:23:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Chris Whitten <lfb@panix.com>
Apparently-To: <libertarians@mit.edu>
Why endless drug wars will never make drug prohibition work
THE ECONOMIC ANATOMY OF A DRUG WAR
Criminal Justice in the Commons
by David W. Rasmussen and Bruce L. Benson
(reviewed by Jim Powell)
Drug prohibition advocates like former "drug czar" Bill
Bennett claim that drug use can be stamped out if only America
has the guts to become a police state. But legal analysts
Rasmussen and Benson show why the dynamics of law enforcement and
drug markets guarantee that drug prohibition will always backfire
tragically. They rest their case on close analysis of alcohol
prohibition during the 1920s and fabled "drug wars" during the
1960s and 1980s.
The authors show how drug prohibition actually escalates
violent crime. Since law enforcement resources are limited,
pursuing more drug offenders means fewer cops available to pursue
non-drug offenders--like muggers, arsonists, burglars, robbers
and rapists. Imprisoning more drug offenders (76% of whom have
no violent crime record) means more crowding which encourages
judges to let others including violent criminals off easy. And,
as the authors make clear, the less certain the punishment for
violent crime, the more of it there tends to be. Moreover, the
authors explain why drug prohibition leads drug dealers to expand
their territory through violence.
The authors explain why law enforcement authorities can
never keep up with resourceful entrepreneurs. They cite dramatic
examples of how enforcement actually spurred production of
marijuana, heroin and crack cocaine.
In their most original analysis--applying knowledge of
chronic problems with common property--the authors show why
police, courts and prisons will always be overwhelmed, regardless
how much they are expanded. By flooding the system with
non-violent cases, drug prohibition has contributed to the
collapse of criminal justice.
Book No. PE6215 (paperback) 263p. $23.00
LAISSEZ FAIRE PRICE ONLY $19.95
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Chris
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Chris Whitten LFB@panix.com
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