The Economics of Drugs and Drug Abuse

The Economics of Drugs and Drug Abuse

In 2001 Portugal came to the conclusion that with approximately half its prison population in jail because of drug related offences that changes in laws were absolutely necessary. In that year the government embarked on what is still to this date the most radical experiment in the management of illicit drugs of any country. Rather than legalize drugs, something that would gotten the very unwanted attention of the US government as well its EU partners Portugal decided to decriminalize all dugs, both hard and soft, and start to treat those who were drug addicts as a public health rather than a criminal issue. Decriminalization means it is still illegal but use is treated as a misdemeanor rather than a felony. After all a crime normally has a victim and in this case, unless the drug addict commits another crime  as a result of their addiction, then there is no victim apart from addict and their family.

Since then the Portuguese experiment has been dissected by virtually every country and despite what one would expect the actual rate of addiction has not increased. In April 2009, the Cato Institute published a White Paper about the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal. Data about the heroin usage rates of 13-16-year-olds from and claims that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates The results of the Portuguese experiment are impressive. The rates of HIV have decreased and so have drug related crimes.  However, Portuguese officials themselves will tell anyone who is willing to listen that decriminalization is not a panacea for drug abuse and that there are many other aspects of the country’s drug abuse problem that were addressed.

In the USA the government maintains a policy that has only changed slightly since President Nixon launched the War on Drugs in 1971. Penalties for the pushing of drugs remain draconian and  a large portion of the prison population in the USA are small time drug pushers and users.  Yet the criminalization along with mandatory prison sentencing has resulted in a massive increase in prison populations in the USA. All drug lords know their economics- the more severe the penalties  for selling,  the higher the price and given a normally price unresponsive demand the greater the profits. You will never find the drug lords advocating either decriminalization or legalization. They know that it is their ‘retailers’ and their mules who go to jail and this is a  minor inconvenience to the drug lords

Last year in the USA it  was estimated that some 50,000 people died of drug overdose. The majority are based on dangerous opioids such as heroin and fentanyl.  This annual death rate is roughly the same as the number of Americans who died during the Vietnam War over a period of nine years. The main substance are opioids which are also used in common pain killers like codeine. One of the main ‘gateways’ for opioid abuse in the USA are not the heroin pushers on the mean streets of American cities but the family doctor who commonly  prescribes opioid based pain killers to help people deal with severe pain. From this people graduate to more deadly opioids.   

Two weeks ago Ms Cheryl Green was arrested in Walvis Bay for growing marijuana for what she claims are medical reasons to help her partner Reiner Kring, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. There are several scholarly articles which support the contention that cannabis does appear to have positive effects for ALS sufferers.

Ms Green was reportedly charged under Act 41/1971 Section 2A which relates to the possession and dealing in prohibited dependence producing drugs or a plant from which such drugs can be manufactured. The law under which Ms Green was arrested was a colonial law from the apartheid era which has in effect been struck down by the courtsin South Africa recently. In many states of the USA Ms Green would simply have go to a doctor and get a letter permitting her to grow a certain quantity of marijuana for her partners condition.

Cannabis for medical uses is  legal in many countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Poland, and Thailand. In the United States, 33 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of cannabis, but at the federal level its use remains prohibited for any purpose. Cannabis has without reasonable doubt positive medical advantages and to imprison people for using it for medical purposes seems to be a  destructive pandering to a small minority of voters  whose knowledge of and interest in the facts regarding the medical advantages of cannabis in  treating some diseases.

Two countries, Canada and Uruguay have legalized cannabis for recreational purposes, South Africa has, following a Constitutional Court ruling, also legalized the recreational consumption of marijuana and  it is time that Namibia starts a national dialogue on reforms of antiquated colonial laws that does not reflect current best practice and medical knowledge. It is an election year and it is doubtful that President Geingob and the Minister of Health would lose votes by asking the country’s Law Reform Commission to publicly review the law especially as it pertains to medical use of cannabis but also for its recreational use.

There can be no doubt that the consequence of abuse of hard drugs are dreadful and addiction to hard drugs often destroys its victims and breaks up families. Yet the question arises as to whether serious drug abuse ie opioids and coca based substances are best treated as criminal  activities as is currently the case, or should users be treated as individuals having a disease, whether social or psychological. The more humane and cost effective way to deal with this scourge of drug addiction is to treat it as a disease and not to waste the nation’s scarce financial resources incarcerating drug users but giving them the medical care that similarly ill people receive from our medical system.

These are the views of Professor Roman Grynberg and not necessarily those of UNAM where he is employed.