Best-Of Advice

On black market economics

I was having a chat with a dear old friend today about the legalisation of drugs. While I am pro-legalisation, he doesn’t believe ANY drugs (even cannabis) should be legalised. His reasons are as follows:During the 1920s or whatever when alcohol was made illegal, it was so completely illogical that people (read: dodgy gangsters and shit) immediately set up complex systems to smuggle and create it. When alcohol was again legalised, the framework for organised crime was in place; just not any actual crime- and it was through this that both drug and arm smuggling became a much bigger issue. His point is that, when you then legalise cocaine/ heroin/ meth/ pot, the people that make these drugs or smuggle them into the country aren’t going to suddenly turn straight and start being legal drug dealers- they’re going to start shit like arms smuggling and people smuggling, which fucks shit up a whole lot worse than a little bit of mind fuckery.

I was just wondering whether you think this is a legitimate issue with the legalisation of drugs, or just some shielded conservative bullshit to hide his own issues?
Thx bby.
xxx

Wow. You actually write with an Australian accent. I can almost hear this guy mansplaining his dumbfuck anti-legalization argument to you over schooners at the pub. I fucking love that.

Unfortunately, the only thing your dear old friend understands less than criminality is basic fucking economics.

First of all, he’s wrong about his underlying premise. As black markets shift from grey to white, the organizations involved really do turn straight and go legal. It proved true after America’s prohibition experiment, and it’s proving true again as we slowly decriminalize marijuana across the western world. Dodgy gangsters are more than happy to become legitimate businessmen. (As if there’s really much of a difference to begin with.)

Secondly, your friend is confusing the criminal underworld’s various command hierarchies with its supply chain logistics. Black markets aren’t a zero-sum game, and the “framework” for organized crime isn’t a rigid thing. It’s not as though with fewer drugs to smuggle, suddenly there’s more room in the cargo hold for guns and Eastern European women. That’s just not how it works.

Your friend is also forgetting the other side of the criminal equation: An obscene amount of law enforcement resources are wasted on the drug war. If those same resources were suddenly freed up to deal with illicit arms dealers and human traffickers, the world would be a much better place.

I’m sorry, but your friend is completely full of shit. Please tell him I said so. His only valid point is that prohibition is illogical. Whether it’s alcohol or any other kind of drug, prohibition in a supposedly free society is nothing more than a grotesque means of social control, and it’s ultimately doomed to fail.

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