The Costs Of Prohibition

The fundamental policy question concerning any drug is whether to make it legal or prohibited. Although the choice is not merely binary, a fairly sharp line divides the spectrum of options. A substance is legal if a large segment of the population can purchase and possess it for unsupervised use, and if there are no restrictions on who can produce and sell the drug beyond licensing and routine regulations. Accepting that binary simplification, the choice becomes what kind of problem one prefers. Use and use-related problems will be more prevalent if the substance is legal. Prohibition will reduce, not eliminate, use and abuse, but with three principal costs; black markets that can be violent and corrupting, enforcement costs that exceed those