should marijuana be legalized??

joefromchicago wrote:

I wish you luck on your new business. By the way, will you be conducting drug tests on your employees?

No, I will not be testing them for drugs. I feel that my only right as an employer is to require that my employees are professional and safe and non-intoxicated while on the job. I don't care what they do on their own time, as long as it doesn't impact their work performance.

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I'm very glad that you've joined us, Thomas.

Thomas wrote:

Alas, most people aren't natural-rights libertarians. Hence, for the purpose of making the case to non-libertarians, I usually resort to utilitarianism and empirical evidence. (Not everybody is a utilitarian either, but most people accept it as their second-best system of ethics, so can usually agree on it.)

I'm neither a libertarian nor a utilitarian, but I'll attempt to follow along.

Thomas wrote:

The empirical evidence shows us several things.

1) Prior to World War 1, marijuana, cocaine, and morphine were all well known, and legal in most states of North America and Europe. So there is a historical record of what the social consequences of legal drug use are. They were adverse, but not terribly so. Certainly not worse than the Chicago booze mafia in the 1920s, or the drug dealer gangs we observe today.

Although it's true that marijuana, cocaine, and morphine were not illegal prior to the twentieth century, it is also true that they were seldom used, at least in their undiluted forms, in western societies. Marijuana usage was almost totally unknown (despite the claims of legalization advocates) outside of small clusters of users. Cocaine and morphine would most often be found in anesthetics and patent nostrums. Opium smoking, although well-known, was largely limited to small pockets in major urban areas.

No doubt some people became addicted even to the diluted forms of cocaine and morphine found in commonly available commercial products, but there really is no comparison between drug usage in the pre-FDA/pre-FBI era and today.

Thomas wrote:

2) There is good econometric evidence that the supply of drugs is quite responsive to price, and that demand for drugs is not; the more addictive the drug, the more irresponsive the demand.

Is this evidence drawn from markets where drug sales are legal?

Thomas wrote:

A heroine addict will do whatever it takes to get his shot, but no more. Therefore, If the price of heroine is high, addicts will prostitute themselves, mug their neighbors, and commit all kinds of other crimes. Conversely, if the price of heroine is low, they can afford to pay for their heroine like they can now pay for cigarettes, continue destroying themselves, but leave others alone.

For the purposes of argument, I'll accept this as true.

Thomas wrote:

The econometric evidence also allows us to make confident predictions about the consequences of legalization: it predicts that drug prices will fall a lot; as a result consumption will rise -- but not by much, and most of the growth will be in soft drugs such as marijuana.

This, I'm afraid, I cannot entirely accept as true. I agree that legalization would see both a fall in prices and a rise in usage, but while I concur that the former would be dramatic, I see no reason to believe that the latter would be slight. In order for one to accept that post-legalization usage would not rise significantly, I think one must believe: (1) that most of the people who want to do drugs are doing drugs already; and (2) that the rest of the people, who now refuse to do drugs, won't be convinced to do them after legalization. Both of these points deserve a closer examination.

(1) Criminal laws are designed not merely to punish those who commit crimes, but also to dissuade those who might be tempted to commit them. In this regard the drug laws are no exception. Of course, there is ample evidence of people who routinely evade the drug laws: we have statistics on them, but we have no statistics on the number of people who are only dissuaded from using drugs by the criminal laws that are in place. In my view, those who favor legalization, and who confidently predict that drug usage will only slightly increase, are basing their predictions on nothing more than a naive belief that people, in general, will do what is in their best interests.

That a libertarian would hold this view is completely unsurprising, since libertarians always hold the view that people will, in general, do what is in their best interests. For them, this belief is not simply an article of faith, it is a keystone of their theory. I, however, remain fundamentally pessimistic regarding the ability of the mass of humans to act rationally, and so I remain unconvinced that they will, when given the choice, avoid engaging in self-destructive behavior.

(2) As a libertarian, Thomas, you would naturally oppose any legal constraints on drug sellers advertising their products. Certainly one of the aims of advertising is to sell products to people who may not have any pre-existing desire to buy those products: advertising is, in other words, the art of selling products to people who didn't know they wanted them. Given our understanding of market behavior, we can expect that drug sellers will attempt to make more money by selling to more users. Indeed, given the high mortality we should anticipate among some portions of the market (such as heroin and methamphetamine users), the sellers would have to market their products aggressively to maintain their profits (in this regard drug marketing is very similar to tobacco marketing).

If we predicate our assumptions of post-legalization drug usage solely on pre-legalization usage, therefore, we ignore the potential effects of advertising and other marketing techniques. Alcohol, for instance, is widely advertised right now (although it is restricted), and alcohol usage among regular drinkers is about eight times higher than marijuana usage among regular smokers (see statistics here). We cannot know for certain how much of that alcohol usage is attributable to advertising, so we cannot know how much drug usage would increase due to the same cause. I think, however, it is safe to assume that drug usage would increase, and increase by more than a minimal amount.

Thomas wrote:

Because prices are low, drug cartels are no longer in a position to keep private armies, and to bribe and corrupt judges and politicians. And because drug dealers are free to compete, it is no longer profitable to addict people with free samples, then exploit their monopoly position to demand astronomical prices. After legalization, addicts will be able to short-circuit this strategy by simply changing dealers.

Well, if by "dealers" you mean "multi-national corporations," I agree. As with any illegal commodity, the trade in narcotics is enormously inefficient. The supply chain is far too labor intensive, and there are too many sellers for the amount of product sold. With legalization, these inefficiencies would be eliminated: the street dealer, the home grower, the meth lab chemist, the coca farmer would all be replaced and the process of producing, refining, supplying, and marketing narcotics would be streamlined. The friendly neighborhood pusher would, in other words, be replaced by RJ Reynolds or British Tobacco. That would, no doubt, lead to more happy addicts, but it would throw a lot of people out of work.

Thomas wrote:

Even for the majority of non-libertarians, the above arguments should be convincing enough to legalize drugs in general, and marijuana in particular.

Regrettably, I'm not convinced.

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goodfielder wrote:

Refer Leviathan. Okay just kidding. "Because it can" probably won't satisfy you.

You're right.

goodfielder wrote:

And now we'll go chasing rabbits down holes as to whether or not the state has the moral right (we know it has the legal right) to prohibit anything and then we'll get tangled up in normative arguments etc etc. Scuse me if I fall asleep at that point. I mean how many Angels will actually fit on the head of a pin?

If the intellectual pressures are too much for you, I won't require you to continue this discussion.

goodfielder wrote:

The state has the moral right to regulate drugs on the basis of personal safety....

The philosophical position I suppose is utilitarian. To minimise harm and to maximise wellbeing.

I'm not sure it is utilitarian. For it to be utilitarian, you would have to argue that the limitation on personal freedom (which would be inutile) is outweighed by the increase in personal safety (which is utile). The limitation on freedom, however, is definite, whereas the increase in safety is indefinite. I'm not sure that utilitarians would accept trading a definite good for an indefinite better.

goodfielder wrote:

So what? Shouldn't anyone, as the old saying has it, be allowed to decide their own path to Hell? Well yes but we live in a society where each one of us is influenced by and influences the rest. Whatever we do affects others. We're not hermits living in a desert. If that was so then I suppose you could do whatever you liked. But since you are happy to live in an organised society and accept the benefits then you have to accept that you have obligations and one of those obligations is to adhere to the democratically produced laws of the society. Yes, the good old social contract with a bit of Leviathan thrown in for good measure.

How is this contractarian version of society squared with your utilitarian morality?

goodfielder wrote:

Disueteude. Any law exists as long as it's observed - not enforced. When a law falls into contempt it's time for it to get the boot.

But we're not talking about desuetude here. The laws are enforced and -- unless we believe that everyone who wants to use drugs is currently using them -- they are effective.

goodfielder wrote:

Now let me get back to basics. The question was "should marijuana be legalised?"

You have the right of course to spin the debate in any way you like but don't be offended if someone comes along and asks why a practical question, a question that might be appreciated by people who one day may have to consider the question in a referendum, is being discussed at such an abstract level.

I'm not offended. I won't, however, participate in a policy discussion.

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joefromchicago wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
Refer Leviathan. Okay just kidding. "Because it can" probably won't satisfy you.

You're right.

I knew it :wink:

goodfielder wrote:

And now we'll go chasing rabbits down holes as to whether or not the state has the moral right (we know it has the legal right) to prohibit anything and then we'll get tangled up in normative arguments etc etc. Scuse me if I fall asleep at that point. I mean how many Angels will actually fit on the head of a pin?

joefromchicago wrote:

If the intellectual pressures are too much for you, I won't require you to continue this discussion.

The chance to withdraw gracefully is appreciated. But then I was always told that I'm inclined to jump into a battle of wits half-armed. It's not the first time I've heard that phrase directed to me (culprit was my philosphy teacher). But not to worry, if the intellectual pressures get too difficult for me I'll shut up and go and play in a thread that better suits my intellectual capacities. I'm really enjoying the "What's Your Favorite Cow?" one, it's got some subtle humour that I really appreciate.

By the way are you a philosophy professor? Serious question, you've got that crusty way of writing.

goodfielder wrote:

The state has the moral right to regulate drugs on the basis of personal safety....

The philosophical position I suppose is utilitarian. To minimise harm and to maximise wellbeing.

joefromchicago wrote:

I'm not sure it is utilitarian. For it to be utilitarian, you would have to argue that the limitation on personal freedom (which would be inutile) is outweighed by the increase in personal safety (which is utile). The limitation on freedom, however, is definite, whereas the increase in safety is indefinite. I'm not sure that utilitarians would accept trading a definite good for an indefinite better.

Me either but thanks for the point. I have a confession to make. I still get bamboozled by the different forms of utilitarianism. Having said that I like Peter Singer and think that those who are attacking him as a babykiller need a good talking to.

goodfielder wrote:

So what? Shouldn't anyone, as the old saying has it, be allowed to decide their own path to Hell? Well yes but we live in a society where each one of us is influenced by and influences the rest. Whatever we do affects others. We're not hermits living in a desert. If that was so then I suppose you could do whatever you liked. But since you are happy to live in an organised society and accept the benefits then you have to accept that you have obligations and one of those obligations is to adhere to the democratically produced laws of the society. Yes, the good old social contract with a bit of Leviathan thrown in for good measure.

joefromchicago wrote:

How is this contractarian version of society squared with your utilitarian morality?

You mean they can't co-exist? I mean in real life, not in an abstract universe. Have a look around you there are contradictions everywhere. Bit like the bumblee - no one told it it wasn't supposed to fly. In real life when everyone is getting on with it everyone forgets theory and just gets on with practise. Not that I don't like a good theory or a good argument about abstract ideas. But when I see a straightforward question such as "should marijuana be legalised?" I go straight into realist mode. I've been through my deeply furrowed brow phase, now I like to see things happen, not just talk about them.

And I know I'd get a pounding from my old philosophy professor if I handed in what I wrote up there. But in my defence, I'm thinking in very much applied terms here.

goodfielder wrote:

Disueteude. Any law exists as long as it's observed - not enforced. When a law falls into contempt it's time for it to get the boot.

joefromchicago wrote:

But we're not talking about desuetude here. The laws are enforced and -- unless we believe that everyone who wants to use drugs is currently using them -- they are effective.

But I was. I said that where a law falls into disueteude it shouldn't be enforced any longer because it has no moral authority. I remember reading something about unpopular tax laws in the colonies some years ago. An unpopular law can't be effectively enforced, it becomes oppression. Marijuana is widely used. It's used by a whole range of people, different cultural backgrounds, different occupational groupings, different ages. No-one believes it's bad for them (I hasten to add I don't smoke anything - never smoked either tobacco or marijuana) so off they go. Some jurisdictions (mine) have accommodated this by "decriminalising" marijuana. Decriminalisation is the halfway house of the gutless politician but at least it stops people getting criminal convictions and all that entails just for being in possession of or smoking a green vegetable substance (that's what we have to call it before it's analysed). It's a joke, really.

One spectacular example of passive civil disobedience is prohibition of liquor. It failed did it not? But it had massive ramifications. I mean it's entirely possible (I'd need to do some research on this so I'll just be a bit tentative in my statement to avoid possible embarrassment later) that prohibition gave either a start to, or impetus to, the development of organised crime in the US. I think it might have turned some small Canadian distilleries into rather big Canadian distilleries into the bargain.

Fact: people like booze.
Fact: they will get it wherever they can.
Fact: imposed prohibition of something which people want will see criminals - who have the intellectual and material resources to get it and who have carried out the risk analysis and are prepared to take the risk of acquiring and distributing whatever it is that's wanted.
Fact: criminals who do this can just fix the price of the commodity to whatever the market will bear and get that price and get very rich

Now change that example to marijuana and my point should be clear.
People want it. They will pay for it and pay a good price. Crooks have made huge money out of it. They use the profits from marijuana distribution to fund other schemes such as importation of opiate based drugs, importation of sex workers etc.

See my point? People should be thinking - this is a crock. We've been sold a pup by every politician who ever stood up in a legislative chamber and banged on about the need to prohibit marijuana. I don't use it, I wouldn't bother to use it if it was legal because I hate smoking, but I can see that prohibition is a greater evil than legalisation.

goodfielder wrote:

Now let me get back to basics. The question was "should marijuana be legalised?"

You have the right of course to spin the debate in any way you like but don't be offended if someone comes along and asks why a practical question, a question that might be appreciated by people who one day may have to consider the question in a referendum, is being discussed at such an abstract level.

joefromchicago wrote:

I'm not offended. I won't, however, participate in a policy discussion.

I'm glad you weren't offended - seriously, I'm not one for that sort of false politeness that accompanies phrases such as "with all due respect" or "your sir are a scoundrel and a cad!" because you just know that the next thing that happens is biffage. I say it like I see it.

No worries - I'll probably bump into you on another thread then. And I do appreciate the civil discourse. I may be a bit light-hearted in some of my comments, they're not intended to be nasty and I would be only too happy to jump into a thread and learn from the discussion and ask for explanation and clarification but in this I suppose I'm driven by what I know as a matter of experience and I have little time for abstract argument on such an important question. I'm making the points I have made in this thread in the hope that (a) I can sharpen my own arguments which will be taken into the real world and (b) that someone else might see some sense in what I've written and think about the con job being spun on them by dishonest or simply gutless politicians.

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goodfielder wrote:

By the way are you a philosophy professor?

No.

goodfielder wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
How is this contractarian version of society squared with your utilitarian morality?

You mean they can't co-exist? I mean in real life, not in an abstract universe. Have a look around you there are contradictions everywhere. Bit like the bumblee - no one told it it wasn't supposed to fly. In real life when everyone is getting on with it everyone forgets theory and just gets on with practise. Not that I don't like a good theory or a good argument about abstract ideas. But when I see a straightforward question such as "should marijuana be legalised?" I go straight into realist mode. I've been through my deeply furrowed brow phase, now I like to see things happen, not just talk about them.

I can't see how contractarian and utilitarian versions of rights can be squared. In simplest terms, contractarians view rights (or, at least some rights) as innate, whereas utilitarians view rights as contingent. If you've managed to reconcile these polar opposites, then I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

goodfielder wrote:

I said that where a law falls into disueteude it shouldn't be enforced any longer because it has no moral authority. I remember reading something about unpopular tax laws in the colonies some years ago. An unpopular law can't be effectively enforced, it becomes oppression.

Is that according to a utilitarian or a contractarian viewpoint?

goodfielder wrote:

Marijuana is widely used. It's used by a whole range of people, different cultural backgrounds, different occupational groupings, different ages. No-one believes it's bad for them (I hasten to add I don't smoke anything - never smoked either tobacco or marijuana) so off they go.

You are far too optimistic. Many believe that marijuana usage is bad for people (e.g., see this source). I freely concede that the health effects of marijuana are subject to intense debate, but to say that "no one believes it's bad for them" is simply false.

goodfielder wrote:

One spectacular example of passive civil disobedience is prohibition of liquor. It failed did it not? But it had massive ramifications. I mean it's entirely possible (I'd need to do some research on this so I'll just be a bit tentative in my statement to avoid possible embarrassment later) that prohibition gave either a start to, or impetus to, the development of organised crime in the US. I think it might have turned some small Canadian distilleries into rather big Canadian distilleries into the bargain.

No doubt. But what's your point? Are you suggesting that marijuana usage today is comparable, in scope, to alcohol usage prior to prohibition?

goodfielder wrote:

Fact: people like booze.
Fact: they will get it wherever they can.
Fact: imposed prohibition of something which people want will see criminals - who have the intellectual and material resources to get it and who have carried out the risk analysis and are prepared to take the risk of acquiring and distributing whatever it is that's wanted.
Fact: criminals who do this can just fix the price of the commodity to whatever the market will bear and get that price and get very rich

The same could be said about loan-sharking and murders-for-hire. Again, what's your point?

goodfielder wrote:

Now change that example to marijuana and my point should be clear.
People want it. They will pay for it and pay a good price. Crooks have made huge money out of it. They use the profits from marijuana distribution to fund other schemes such as importation of opiate based drugs, importation of sex workers etc.

This could just as easily be used as an argument in favor of more restrictive drug laws.

goodfielder wrote:

See my point? People should be thinking - this is a crock. We've been sold a pup by every politician who ever stood up in a legislative chamber and banged on about the need to prohibit marijuana. I don't use it, I wouldn't bother to use it if it was legal because I hate smoking, but I can see that prohibition is a greater evil than legalisation.

Unfortunately, your view is obscured by misinformation and bad logic.

goodfielder wrote:

I'm glad you weren't offended - seriously, I'm not one for that sort of false politeness that accompanies phrases such as "with all due respect" or "your sir are a scoundrel and a cad!" because you just know that the next thing that happens is biffage. I say it like I see it.

I encourage you to continue doing so.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Regrettably, I'm not convinced

That's fine. If I could knock you out in round one, you wouldn't be worth sparring with. On to round two then.

joefromchicago wrote:

No doubt some people became addicted even to the diluted forms of cocaine and morphine found in commonly available commercial products, but there really is no comparison between drug usage in the pre-FDA/pre-FBI era and today.

I don't see how you reach this conclusion from the paragraphs leading lead up to it. Taken at face value, even your account of the facts suggests that (1) legal drugs are consistent with a low level of usage, and (2) FBI and FDA, in attempting to curb illicit drug usage, at best achieved nothing, and at worst achieved the opposite of what they were created to achieve. (Kind of like the Federal Reserve Bank did when it turned Black Friday into The Great Depression.) These indications contradict your position and support mine, so I understand why you don't want 19th century drug usage to be comparable with 20th century drug usage. But to establish that they actually aren't, you would have to argue that there are other variables determining drug usage. You would then have to show these variables were way off in the 19th century compared to the 20th, in a direction we either don't know, or know to inhibit drug use. I must have missed the point where you made that argument.

joefromchicago wrote:

Thomas wrote:
2) There is good econometric evidence that the supply of drugs is quite responsive to price, and that demand for drugs is not; the more addictive the drug, the more irresponsive the demand.

Is this evidence drawn from markets where drug sales are legal?

That too, but it's more general than that. Beginning in the early 70s, when Becker and Posner started up the field of "Law and Economics", their analysis spawned a flood of statistical research into the deterrent effect of punishment on crime. The efficacy of drug prohibition was one branch of that research. The general approach of that research was to first measure differences in punishment, likelyhood of being caught, and incidence of the activity punished. They then ran multiple regressions on them, controlling for other variable that might affect the activity. Having observed the correlation, the better publications also included time series to see which way the causation went. For the purposes of econometrics, "Legal" is treated as "illegal with zero punishment", so is included as a special case. A good introduction to the findings, with pointers to the relevant literature, is Miron and Zwiebel: The Economic Case against Drug Prohibition, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol.9, no.4 (Fall 1995), pages 175-192.

joefromchicago wrote:

I see no reason to believe that the latter would be slight. In order for one to accept that post-legalization usage would not rise significantly, I think one must believe: (1) that most of the people who want to do drugs are doing drugs already;

The number of "people who want to do drugs" or "who now refuse to do drugs" are both not constant. They are both variables of the cost of doing drugs. This cost includes the probability of being caught, and the severity of the punishment when caught. With this caveat, (1) is true: Everybody who wants to do drugs at the current cost is already doing so. The question is what happens when the government changes the cost.

joefromchicago wrote:

(2) that the rest of the people, who now refuse to do drugs, won't be convinced to do them after legalization. Both of these points deserve a closer examination.

This is where the responsiveness of demand to price comes in. (The technical term is "price elasticity"). Once econometrics has established that demand for hard drugs is very inelastic ("irresponsive to price") and that demand for soft drugs is very elastic, it is fair to predict that a fall in prices will greatly increase the consumption of weakly-addictive, but currently illegal durgs, while barely increasing the consumption of hard drugs. As it happens, the historical record offers some support for this prediction. In the 1920s, alcohol prohibition barely decreased the consumption of hard liquor and greatly decreased the consumption of beer and wine.

joefromchicago wrote:

(1) Criminal laws are designed not merely to punish those who commit crimes, but also to dissuade those who might be tempted to commit them. In this regard the drug laws are no exception.

Yes. The econometric research I cited accounts for this, as do the supply- and demand curves derived from it.

joefromchicago wrote:

That a libertarian would hold this view is completely unsurprising, since libertarians always hold the view that people will, in general, do what is in their best interests. For them, this belief is not simply an article of faith, it is a keystone of their theory.

As generalizations go, this one is broad, confident, and false. Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural address, gave a much more nearly correct account of the keystone you probably have in mind: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" Reagan was a bit timid in his libertarianism here, but he did get the important distinction right. The key argument for laissez-faire is not that people can be trusted to do what's right for them, It is that they can be trusted even less do do what's right for other people, especially when they don't know them.

joefromchicago wrote:

I, however, remain fundamentally pessimistic regarding the ability of the mass of humans to act rationally, and so I remain unconvinced that they will, when given the choice, avoid engaging in self-destructive behavior.

For the sake of this particular argument, I will grant you that. Now how does that make the case for strong government and against laissez-faire? If the problem is that people are destructive and irrational, why does it solve that problem when you transfer power from irrational, destructive people outside the government to irrational, destructive people inside the government? Do you have any basis for assuming that politicians, judges, and cops are less destructive, more decent, and better informed than the people they are governing? If so, I would be curious to hear about that basis. I would also suggest that you revisit the not-too-distant history of the city you're from. This should pour a bucket full of cold realism onto your assumption.

joefromchicago wrote:

2) As a libertarian, Thomas, you would naturally oppose any legal constraints on drug sellers advertising their products.

True enough.

joefromchicago wrote:

Given our understanding of market behavior, we can expect that drug sellers will attempt to make more money by selling to more users.

Yes -- judging by the data we have on advertizing in general, it's mostly an arms race between competitors in the same market, but the effect you mention exists too.

joefromchicago wrote:

Indeed, given the high mortality we should anticipate among some portions of the market (such as heroin and methamphetamine users), the sellers would have to market their products aggressively to maintain their profits (in this regard drug marketing is very similar to tobacco marketing).

I think that assumption is false. In a free market, killing your customers is bad for business. The main reason crack dealers are doing it today is because prohibition makes it profitable.

joefromchicago wrote:

If we predicate our assumptions of post-legalization drug usage solely on pre-legalization usage, therefore, we ignore the potential effects of advertising and other marketing techniques.

Well, I have reason to suspect that you overestimate the effect of advertizing on increasing the overall size of the hashish pie, and that you underestimate the effect of suppliers beggaring their competitors to grow their slice of it. But even if I concede the point, I would be willing to trade that off for the reduced crime rate among both consumers and producers. I'm not claiming that legalizing drugs will lead us to utopia -- only that it leads us to a regime that, everything considered, is better than what we now have.

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joefromchicago wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
By the way are you a philosophy professor?

No.

goodfielder wrote:
joefromchicago wrote:
How is this contractarian version of society squared with your utilitarian morality?

You mean they can't co-exist? I mean in real life, not in an abstract universe. Have a look around you there are contradictions everywhere. Bit like the bumblee - no one told it it wasn't supposed to fly. In real life when everyone is getting on with it everyone forgets theory and just gets on with practise. Not that I don't like a good theory or a good argument about abstract ideas. But when I see a straightforward question such as "should marijuana be legalised?" I go straight into realist mode. I've been through my deeply furrowed brow phase, now I like to see things happen, not just talk about them.

I can't see how contractarian and utilitarian versions of rights can be squared. In simplest terms, contractarians view rights (or, at least some rights) as innate, whereas utilitarians view rights as contingent. If you've managed to reconcile these polar opposites, then I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

goodfielder wrote:
I said that where a law falls into disueteude it shouldn't be enforced any longer because it has no moral authority. I remember reading something about unpopular tax laws in the colonies some years ago. An unpopular law can't be effectively enforced, it becomes oppression.

Is that according to a utilitarian or a contractarian viewpoint?

goodfielder wrote:
Marijuana is widely used. It's used by a whole range of people, different cultural backgrounds, different occupational groupings, different ages. No-one believes it's bad for them (I hasten to add I don't smoke anything - never smoked either tobacco or marijuana) so off they go.

You are far too optimistic. Many believe that marijuana usage is bad for people (e.g., see this source). I freely concede that the health effects of marijuana are subject to intense debate, but to say that "no one believes it's bad for them" is simply false.

goodfielder wrote:
One spectacular example of passive civil disobedience is prohibition of liquor. It failed did it not? But it had massive ramifications. I mean it's entirely possible (I'd need to do some research on this so I'll just be a bit tentative in my statement to avoid possible embarrassment later) that prohibition gave either a start to, or impetus to, the development of organised crime in the US. I think it might have turned some small Canadian distilleries into rather big Canadian distilleries into the bargain.

No doubt. But what's your point? Are you suggesting that marijuana usage today is comparable, in scope, to alcohol usage prior to prohibition?

goodfielder wrote:
Fact: people like booze.
Fact: they will get it wherever they can.
Fact: imposed prohibition of something which people want will see criminals - who have the intellectual and material resources to get it and who have carried out the risk analysis and are prepared to take the risk of acquiring and distributing whatever it is that's wanted.
Fact: criminals who do this can just fix the price of the commodity to whatever the market will bear and get that price and get very rich

The same could be said about loan-sharking and murders-for-hire. Again, what's your point?

goodfielder wrote:
Now change that example to marijuana and my point should be clear.
People want it. They will pay for it and pay a good price. Crooks have made huge money out of it. They use the profits from marijuana distribution to fund other schemes such as importation of opiate based drugs, importation of sex workers etc.

This could just as easily be used as an argument in favor of more restrictive drug laws.

goodfielder wrote:
See my point? People should be thinking - this is a crock. We've been sold a pup by every politician who ever stood up in a legislative chamber and banged on about the need to prohibit marijuana. I don't use it, I wouldn't bother to use it if it was legal because I hate smoking, but I can see that prohibition is a greater evil than legalisation.

Unfortunately, your view is obscured by misinformation and bad logic.

goodfielder wrote:
I'm glad you weren't offended - seriously, I'm not one for that sort of false politeness that accompanies phrases such as "with all due respect" or "your sir are a scoundrel and a cad!" because you just know that the next thing that happens is biffage. I say it like I see it.

I encourage you to continue doing so.

That was really disappointing. Seriously. I thought you were evasive. I feel I'm arguing with an intelligent dilettante.

It's good to read yours and Thomas' discussions but they are at such an abstract level that they would be better in a thread that made it clear that the discussion of the issue wasn't grounded in practicalities. The thread has the potential to end up as a debate just between yourselves. If it does, no worries, no-one "owns" a thread.

Anyway I made my points and I see no point in answering your questions joe, I'm not being rude, there's just no point. I know I'm not as intelligent as you or Thomas and I certainly can't argue with the knowledge you are both displaying.

I suppose I'm locked into a practical view of this topic because I've seen at first hand what the illicit and uneducated use of opiates can do to people and I've seen the link between the prohibition of marijuana and the use of narcotics (opiates) and other derivatives.

I am familiar with the slippery slope objection to prohibition of marijuana, the Greek chorus wailing that "if we legalise marijuana they'll all go on to use harder drugs!" Guess what? Marijuana because it's prohibited is a gateway drug - of itself it doesn't lead to the use of opiates (I know you haven't made that connection but that comment isn't directed at you). The cool dude who supplies someone's marijuana is the same cool dude who can get opiates as well. And well, why not try it? He's a cool dude. Even the underground understands the the process of "sales" and its psychology.

My point, if it's to obscure, is that people who want marijuana - and there are a lot of them - have to dabble on the edges of the underground to get it. Not for them a quick trip to the convenience store.

Anyway that's just my take. The prohibition on marijuana should be lifted because it causes an immense amount of misery. But while we're being lied to by politicians about this issue not much is going to change.

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joefromchicago wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
By the way are you a philosophy professor?

No.

goodfielder wrote:
joefromchicago wrote:
How is this contractarian version of society squared with your utilitarian morality?

You mean they can't co-exist? I mean in real life, not in an abstract universe. Have a look around you there are contradictions everywhere. Bit like the bumblee - no one told it it wasn't supposed to fly. In real life when everyone is getting on with it everyone forgets theory and just gets on with practise. Not that I don't like a good theory or a good argument about abstract ideas. But when I see a straightforward question such as "should marijuana be legalised?" I go straight into realist mode. I've been through my deeply furrowed brow phase, now I like to see things happen, not just talk about them.

I can't see how contractarian and utilitarian versions of rights can be squared. In simplest terms, contractarians view rights (or, at least some rights) as innate, whereas utilitarians view rights as contingent. If you've managed to reconcile these polar opposites, then I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

goodfielder wrote:
I said that where a law falls into disueteude it shouldn't be enforced any longer because it has no moral authority. I remember reading something about unpopular tax laws in the colonies some years ago. An unpopular law can't be effectively enforced, it becomes oppression.

Is that according to a utilitarian or a contractarian viewpoint?

goodfielder wrote:
Marijuana is widely used. It's used by a whole range of people, different cultural backgrounds, different occupational groupings, different ages. No-one believes it's bad for them (I hasten to add I don't smoke anything - never smoked either tobacco or marijuana) so off they go.

You are far too optimistic. Many believe that marijuana usage is bad for people (e.g., see this source). I freely concede that the health effects of marijuana are subject to intense debate, but to say that "no one believes it's bad for them" is simply false.

goodfielder wrote:
One spectacular example of passive civil disobedience is prohibition of liquor. It failed did it not? But it had massive ramifications. I mean it's entirely possible (I'd need to do some research on this so I'll just be a bit tentative in my statement to avoid possible embarrassment later) that prohibition gave either a start to, or impetus to, the development of organised crime in the US. I think it might have turned some small Canadian distilleries into rather big Canadian distilleries into the bargain.

No doubt. But what's your point? Are you suggesting that marijuana usage today is comparable, in scope, to alcohol usage prior to prohibition?

goodfielder wrote:
Fact: people like booze.
Fact: they will get it wherever they can.
Fact: imposed prohibition of something which people want will see criminals - who have the intellectual and material resources to get it and who have carried out the risk analysis and are prepared to take the risk of acquiring and distributing whatever it is that's wanted.
Fact: criminals who do this can just fix the price of the commodity to whatever the market will bear and get that price and get very rich

The same could be said about loan-sharking and murders-for-hire. Again, what's your point?

goodfielder wrote:
Now change that example to marijuana and my point should be clear.
People want it. They will pay for it and pay a good price. Crooks have made huge money out of it. They use the profits from marijuana distribution to fund other schemes such as importation of opiate based drugs, importation of sex workers etc.

This could just as easily be used as an argument in favor of more restrictive drug laws.

goodfielder wrote:
See my point? People should be thinking - this is a crock. We've been sold a pup by every politician who ever stood up in a legislative chamber and banged on about the need to prohibit marijuana. I don't use it, I wouldn't bother to use it if it was legal because I hate smoking, but I can see that prohibition is a greater evil than legalisation.

Unfortunately, your view is obscured by misinformation and bad logic.

goodfielder wrote:
I'm glad you weren't offended - seriously, I'm not one for that sort of false politeness that accompanies phrases such as "with all due respect" or "your sir are a scoundrel and a cad!" because you just know that the next thing that happens is biffage. I say it like I see it.

I encourage you to continue doing so.

That was really disappointing. Seriously. I thought you were evasive. I feel I'm arguing with an intelligent dilettante.

It's good to read yours and Thomas' discussions but they are at such an abstract level that they would be better in a thread that made it clear that the discussion of the issue wasn't grounded in practicalities. The thread has the potential to end up as a debate just between yourselves. If it does, no worries, no-one "owns" a thread.

Anyway I made my points and I see no point in answering your questions joe, I'm not being rude, there's just no point. I know I'm not as intelligent as you or Thomas and I certainly can't argue with the knowledge you are both displaying.

I suppose I'm locked into a practical view of this topic because I've seen at first hand what the illicit and uneducated use of opiates can do to people and I've seen the link between the prohibition of marijuana and the use of narcotics (opiates) and other derivatives.

I am familiar with the slippery slope objection to prohibition of marijuana, the Greek chorus wailing that "if we legalise marijuana they'll all go on to use harder drugs!" Guess what? Marijuana because it's prohibited is a gateway drug - of itself it doesn't lead to the use of opiates (I know you haven't made that connection but that comment isn't directed at you). The cool dude who supplies someone's marijuana is the same cool dude who can get opiates as well. And well, why not try it? He's a cool dude. Even the underground understands the the process of "sales" and its psychology.

My point, if it's too obscure, is that people who want marijuana - and there are a lot of them - have to dabble on the edges of the underground to get it. Not for them a quick trip to the convenience store.

Anyway that's just my take. The prohibition on marijuana should be lifted because it causes an immense amount of misery. But while we're being lied to by politicians about this issue not much is going to change.[/quote]

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Thomas, goodfielder: I anticipate that I will be busy for the next couple of days. I will submit my responses at the first opportunity.

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Thomas wrote:

I don't see how you reach this conclusion from the paragraphs leading lead up to it. Taken at face value, even your account of the facts suggests that (1) legal drugs are consistent with a low level of usage, and (2) FBI and FDA, in attempting to curb illicit drug usage, at best achieved nothing, and at worst achieved the opposite of what they were created to achieve. (Kind of like the Federal Reserve Bank did when it turned Black Friday into The Great Depression.) These indications contradict your position and support mine, so I understand why you don't want 19th century drug usage to be comparable with 20th century drug usage. But to establish that they actually aren't, you would have to argue that there are other variables determining drug usage. You would then have to show these variables were way off in the 19th century compared to the 20th, in a direction we either don't know, or know to inhibit drug use. I must have missed the point where you made that argument.

To address your points in turn:

(1) I would agree that legal narcotics can be consistent with low levels of usage -- in the nineteenth century. I see no reason, however, to suspect that the conditions which obtained in the nineteenth century, and which rendered it possible to contain any widespread narcotic usage, would obtain today. As such, I agree that there are variables at work that determined drug usage in the nineteenth century and that are not at work today. I did not make that explicit in my previous post, but then I didn't consider the point important enough to elaborate upon.

(2) I disagree. I think the FDA's efforts, in particular, were highly effective and unquestionably beneficial. On the other hand, that the various government agencies were not completely successful in stemming the rise of illegal narcotics doesn't necessarily mean that they were ineffective, since we do not have the ability to test that hypothesis by creating a parallel world where those agencies did not exist. The evidence, then, can be taken to show either that the agencies were totally ineffective, or equally that they were extremely effective in limiting what would have been, without regulation, a far greater usage of narcotics.

Thomas wrote:

That too, but it's more general than that. Beginning in the early 70s, when Becker and Posner started up the field of "Law and Economics", their analysis spawned a flood of statistical research into the deterrent effect of punishment on crime. The efficacy of drug prohibition was one branch of that research. The general approach of that research was to first measure differences in punishment, likelyhood of being caught, and incidence of the activity punished. They then ran multiple regressions on them, controlling for other variable that might affect the activity. Having observed the correlation, the better publications also included time series to see which way the causation went. For the purposes of econometrics, "Legal" is treated as "illegal with zero punishment", so is included as a special case. A good introduction to the findings, with pointers to the relevant literature, is Miron and Zwiebel: The Economic Case against Drug Prohibition, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol.9, no.4 (Fall 1995), pages 175-192.

I've read enough of Posner to be suspicious of any of the conclusions that he reaches. And, in general, I have found far more sloppy, unsubstantiated work in the field of econometrics (such as, e.g., the work of Robert Fogel) than solid, well-supported work. But I would be happy to read any econometric links that you may be able to find that substantiate your claims regarding drug laws.

Thomas wrote:

The number of "people who want to do drugs" or "who now refuse to do drugs" are both not constant. They are both variables of the cost of doing drugs. This cost includes the probability of being caught, and the severity of the punishment when caught. With this caveat, (1) is true: Everybody who wants to do drugs at the current cost is already doing so. The question is what happens when the government changes the cost.

That, I humbly submit, is a fatuous claim. If we reason that those who are willing to engage in a behavior are those who are willing to bear the costs of engaging in that behavior, then of course everyone who wants to do drugs is doing them right now. And that would be true if tomorrow everyone gives up drugs completely, just as it would be true if tomorrow everyone starts taking drugs. As such, it is an empty, meaningless statement.

Thomas wrote:

This is where the responsiveness of demand to price comes in. (The technical term is "price elasticity"). Once econometrics has established that demand for hard drugs is very inelastic ("irresponsive to price") and that demand for soft drugs is very elastic, it is fair to predict that a fall in prices will greatly increase the consumption of weakly-addictive, but currently illegal durgs, while barely increasing the consumption of hard drugs. As it happens, the historical record offers some support for this prediction. In the 1920s, alcohol prohibition barely decreased the consumption of hard liquor and greatly decreased the consumption of beer and wine.

Two points:

(1) I still am not convinced that there is any kind of "price inelasticity" for hard drugs. In particular, unless your data come from an unregulated marketplace, I don't see how you can make that conclusion.

(2) Your Prohibition example is a good reason why I remain skeptical of econometric analyses, especially those that are based on historical examples. If we grant that the statistics are correct, and that Prohibition affected the consumption of beer and wine more than the consumption of hard liquor, then that might support the conclusion that beer and wine were highly price elastic whereas hard liquor was relatively price inelastic. It could, however, also mean that it was much easier to obtain hard liquor than beer and wine. After all, the distilling process for alcohol is fairly simple, whereas both brewing and vintning require a good deal of skill. Remember, it was bathtub gin, not bathtub beer or bathtub wine. Furthermore, producers could process and distribute hard liquor more easily than beer or wine, since more alcohol could be handled in fewer bottles. It made economic sense, therefore, for producers to concentrate on hard liquor than on beer and wine (which would be bulkier and command a lower price than hard liquor). The effect on consumption, therefore, may have been the result of factors affecting production, not the result of factors affecting price to the consumer.

Thomas wrote:

As generalizations go, this one is broad, confident, and false. Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural address, gave a much more nearly correct account of the keystone you probably have in mind: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" Reagan was a bit timid in his libertarianism here, but he did get the important distinction right. The key argument for laissez-faire is not that people can be trusted to do what's right for them, It is that they can be trusted even less do do what's right for other people, especially when they don't know them.

If libertarians do not believe that people, in general, act in their own best interests then I can't understand the basis of libertarianism. Certainly, the utopian visions of a society regulated by free choice and contract, a la Robert Nozick, could not be attainable if people were, on the whole, irrational (or even somewhat irrational). Likewise, the economic underpinnings of libertarianism rest, in large part, on rational choice theory, which assumes that everyone acts in their own best interests. If my "broad generalization" is not correct, then libertarianism is a hollow theory.

Thomas wrote:

For the sake of this particular argument, I will grant you that. Now how does that make the case for strong government and against laissez-faire? If the problem is that people are destructive and irrational, why does it solve that problem when you transfer power from irrational, destructive people outside the government to irrational, destructive people inside the government? Do you have any basis for assuming that politicians, judges, and cops are less destructive, more decent, and better informed than the people they are governing? If so, I would be curious to hear about that basis.

I have no problem stating that government, in general, is better informed than the average citizen. I would also contend, albeit somewhat more tentatively, that it is more decent and less destructive than the average citizen (or, to put it more clearly, more decent and less destructive than the average citizen given similar means at their disposal). The reason for this is that the government, because it rests on common consensus, represents an "average" of society's intelligence, decency, and willingness to destroy. People can range from the catatonic and apathetic to the hyperactice and schizophrenic, but democratic governments rarely swing to those extremes.

Thomas wrote:

I would also suggest that you revisit the not-too-distant history of the city you're from. This should pour a bucket full of cold realism onto your assumption.

How recent? My city has a pretty colorful past.

Thomas wrote:

I think that assumption is false. In a free market, killing your customers is bad for business. The main reason crack dealers are doing it today is because prohibition makes it profitable.

Killing customers is never good for business, except perhaps for the euthenasia business. Nevertheless, businesses routinely kill their customers. Tobacco companies have been doing it for years, as have, to a lesser degree of lethality, alcohol producers. Presumably, there would be no analog to the FDA in a libertarian society, so drug producers in a post-legalization world would be free to sell any kind of lethal drug that consumers would be willing to buy, and would do so if demand were high enough. For the libertarian, this presents no problem, since the marketplace would inevitably punish any firm that consistently killed its customers. But, as I have mentioned in one of our previous discussions, this fact is little comfort to the consumers who die before the marketplace responds.

Thomas wrote:

Well, I have reason to suspect that you overestimate the effect of advertizing on increasing the overall size of the hashish pie, and that you underestimate the effect of suppliers beggaring their competitors to grow their slice of it. But even if I concede the point, I would be willing to trade that off for the reduced crime rate among both consumers and producers. I'm not claiming that legalizing drugs will lead us to utopia -- only that it leads us to a regime that, everything considered, is better than what we now have.

Advertising has certainly increased the overall size of practically every other consumer product pie -- that's the whole purpose of advertising. If advertising didn't expand the market for a product, then there wouldn't be any point in advertising the product. Consequently, I remain convinced that advertising legalized narcotics would result in increased usage.

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goodfielder wrote:

That was really disappointing. Seriously. I thought you were evasive. I feel I'm arguing with an intelligent dilettante.

I'm sorry you feel that way, although I'm gladdened somewhat by being portrayed as an intelligent dilettante. There's nothing worse than being a dilettante and being an idiot to boot.

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should marijuana be legalised?

Well in an ideal world yes. What the individual choses to imbibe into his or her body is no business of the state. On the other hand there are many people to whom the state has a duty of care. Marijuana is adictive, as is heroin and crack cocaine. The fact that alcohol and tobacco are legally available and also addictive does not justify the legalisation of other drugs. Legalise crack and you get many more people addicted to crack. Its simple really.

So in an ideal world yes legalise all drugs.

But in an ideal world, no one would be stupid enough to get addicted.

We dont live in an ideal world, therefore there has to be some control. Thats my bit.

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joefromchicago wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
That was really disappointing. Seriously. I thought you were evasive. I feel I'm arguing with an intelligent dilettante.

I'm sorry you feel that way, although I'm gladdened somewhat by being portrayed as an intelligent dilettante. There's nothing worse than being a dilettante and being an idiot to boot.

Nope, would never use the word "idiot" with a reference to you joe. No, my reference to "dilettante" was an impression - probably totally wrong - that you are more interested in discussing abstract issues than practical/applied issues in these forums. Nothing wrong with that of course, just a jaundiced, personal view. I know nothing about you of course but if you're in a day to day position where pragmatism is the order of the day then I would readily understand a desire to think and discuss in the abstract, to think about things on a different plane. Having been in just such a position myself some years ago where principle was well and truly pinned to the mat by pragmatism, I appreciated the rare occasions when I could sit back with a workmate and discuss policy at an abstract level (I worked for a union in a senior elected position - pragmatism was as important as oxygen).

Not a personal shot joe, an observation. I apologise if any offence was taken, it was certainly never intended.

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Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

should marijuana be legalised?

Well in an ideal world yes. What the individual choses to imbibe into his or her body is no business of the state. On the other hand there are many people to whom the state has a duty of care. Marijuana is adictive, as is heroin and crack cocaine. The fact that alcohol and tobacco are legally available and also addictive does not justify the legalisation of other drugs. Legalise crack and you get many more people addicted to crack. Its simple really.

So in an ideal world yes legalise all drugs.

But in an ideal world, no one would be stupid enough to get addicted.

We dont live in an ideal world, therefore there has to be some control. Thats my bit.

Then make all drugs illegal. Consistency in public health policy and in criminal justice are absolutely necessary to avoid public contempt.

If we should prohibit a substance because it is (a) addictive and (b) harmful if misused) then everything that is addictive and capable of causing harm if it is misused should be prohibited. So tobacco and alcohol should be prohibited.

On the other hand if the objective is to minimise harm to individuals and society as a result of misuse of substances then allowing people to make educated and informed decisions as to whether or not they should use those substances.

In one fell swoop we cut the legs out from organised crime. Or we cold have. Unfortunately some substances have been unreasonably prohibited for so long organised crime has been able to move into legitimate areas and is now part and parce of the western economy. Another subject I know.

The state doesn't have a duty of care in this instance by the way.

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goodfielder wrote:

Not a personal shot joe, an observation. I apologise if any offence was taken, it was certainly never intended.

No offense taken. I've been called much worse.

I have no problem discussing pragmatic solutions to concrete problems; I just don't have any interest in discussing pragmatic solutions to the drug problem. I don't find the topic very interesting, and I have found that there is absolutely no ground for meaningful dialogue between the two sides. In a topic regarding whether or not marijuana should be legalized, however, I find that there is plenty of room to discuss the abstract issues that naturally flow from the "should" in that question.

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I know what you mean about the apparent gap between the two camps, as it were, but I have this idea that the more it's discussed by people who take such issues seriously that perhaps things will change. That's me though, hopeful to the point of being a pollyanna.

Re the "should" - point taken.

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Sorry Joe -- I've been meaning to respond for quite some time, but somehow got sidetracked in other threads

joefromchicago wrote:

(2) I disagree. I think the FDA's efforts, in particular, were highly effective and unquestionably beneficial. On the other hand, that the various government agencies were not completely successful in stemming the rise of illegal narcotics doesn't necessarily mean that they were ineffective, since we do not have the ability to test that hypothesis by creating a parallel world where those agencies did not exist. The evidence, then, can be taken to show either that the agencies were totally ineffective, or equally that they were extremely effective in limiting what would have been, without regulation, a far greater usage of narcotics.

I can't understand your logic here. If "the evidence, then, can be taken to show either that the agencies were totally ineffective or equally that they were extremely effective", what is the basis on which "I think the FDA's efforts, in particular, were highly effective and unquestionably beneficial"?

joefromchicago wrote:

But I would be happy to read any econometric links that you may be able to find that substantiate your claims regarding drug laws.

Judging by a search on Google Scholar, it appears that none of the good studies are webbed, and that the stuff you find online is mostly think tank publications -- useless for anything but preaching to the choir. I would have to go back to the library and do a decent literature search, which is more effort than I am willing to invest in this thread at the moment.

joefromchicago wrote:

Thomas wrote:
The number of "people who want to do drugs" or "who now refuse to do drugs" are both not constant. They are both variables of the cost of doing drugs. This cost includes the probability of being caught, and the severity of the punishment when caught. With this caveat, (1) is true: Everybody who wants to do drugs at the current cost is already doing so. The question is what happens when the government changes the cost.

That, I humbly submit, is a fatuous claim. If we reason that those who are willing to engage in a behavior are those who are willing to bear the costs of engaging in that behavior, then of course everyone who wants to do drugs is doing them right now. And that would be true if tomorrow everyone gives up drugs completely, just as it would be true if tomorrow everyone starts taking drugs. As such, it is an empty, meaningless statement.

I disagree. The "empty, meaningless statement" is when you talk about people who want to do drugs, without acknowledging that "wanting" depends on what people are willing to give up to do drugs.

joefromchicago wrote:

(1) I still am not convinced that there is any kind of "price inelasticity" for hard drugs. In particular, unless your data come from an unregulated marketplace, I don't see how you can make that conclusion.

Regulation has the effect of changing the cost of buying and selling in the market that's being regulated. From the buyers' and sellers' point of view, it makes no difference if you have an unregulated market where you pay a $1000 tax for each ounce of hashish you sell, or whether you pay a $1000 fine. What matters, at least on that level of approximation, is that you have to pay those $1000. Therefore, from an economist's point of view, the difference between an unregulated market with a tax and a regulated market is smaller than it may be from a jurist's point of view.

joefromchicago wrote:

If we grant that the statistics are correct, and that Prohibition affected the consumption of beer and wine more than the consumption of hard liquor, then that might support the conclusion that beer and wine were highly price elastic whereas hard liquor was relatively price inelastic. It could, however, also mean that it was much easier to obtain hard liquor than beer and wine. After all, the distilling process for alcohol is fairly simple, whereas both brewing and vintning require a good deal of skill. Remember, it was bathtub gin, not bathtub beer or bathtub wine. Furthermore, producers could process and distribute hard liquor more easily than beer or wine, since more alcohol could be handled in fewer bottles. It made economic sense, therefore, for producers to concentrate on hard liquor than on beer and wine (which would be bulkier and command a lower price than hard liquor). The effect on consumption, therefore, may have been the result of factors affecting production, not the result of factors affecting price to the consumer.

Everything you say above could be true. But even if it is, it would not change an economist's prediction of what happens after legalization. The prediction is the same whether you attribute the observation with price elasticity of demand or price elasticity of supply.

joefromchicago wrote:

If libertarians do not believe that people, in general, act in their own best interests then I can't understand the basis of libertarianism. Certainly, the utopian visions of a society regulated by free choice and contract, a la Robert Nozick, could not be attainable if people were, on the whole, irrational (or even somewhat irrational).

That is true, but neither would governments work. The main underlying reason is that in any given real-life situation, there is only a few ways of acting rationally, often just one. By contrast, there is a nearly infinite number of ways in which people can act irrationally. Hence, the assumption of irrationality, even if true, does not allow you to predict anything. The assumption of rationality does. So under a realistic view of how people are -- sometimes they're rational, sometimes not -- you will end up predicting some random distribution around the rational outcome. An extended defense of the rationality assumption in economics can be found in the first chapter of David Friedman's Price Theory textbook.(Under the heading: "Why economics might work") My point is, assuming (some) rationality is a precondition for any social system to work. The case for libertarianism rests on the assumption that people act more rationally when they spend their own money (as in the market) than when they spend other people's money (as in government, more rationally when they spend it on themselves (as in the market) than when they spend it on other people (as in government). The case for small government rests on differences in rationality, not on its absolute value.

joefromchicago wrote:

Likewise, the economic underpinnings of libertarianism rest, in large part, on rational choice theory, which assumes that everyone acts in their own best interests. If my "broad generalization" is not correct, then libertarianism is a hollow theory.

In the classical liberal tradition, there is a long line of authors who have argued that small government is a good idea precisely because people get things wrong pretty often, and precisely because information costs are often high. A full account of this tradition would probably outwear your patience, so I will just point you to Spencer (1853) and Hayek (1945), which I consider the most important ones.

joefromchicago wrote:

I have no problem stating that government, in general, is better informed than the average citizen. I would also contend, albeit somewhat more tentatively, that it is more decent and less destructive than the average citizen (or, to put it more clearly, more decent and less destructive than the average citizen given similar means at their disposal). The reason for this is that the government, because it rests on common consensus, represents an "average" of society's intelligence, decency, and willingness to destroy. People can range from the catatonic and apathetic to the hyperactice and schizophrenic, but democratic governments rarely swing to those extremes.

That is a fine theoretical argument, but it implies the assumptions that a) rational voters aren't facing strong incentives to be ignorant about it, or not to vote at all; b) rational politicians aren't facing strong incentives to redistribute wealth from dispersed interests to concentrated interests; and c) rational bureaucrat does not face strong incentives to maximize their agency' budget, no matter what voters want or politicians say. Unfortunately, all three assumptions are false.

On the practical side, I would submit that my grandfather, a German classical liberal who couldn't keep his mouth shut (some things do run in families) made experiences after 1933 which would lead him to disagree. I cannot give a full account without triggering Godwin's law, but suffice it to say that the thugs who did it had the blessing of the common consensus and did represent the "aferage of society's intelligence, decensy and willingness to destroy -- the latter of which was considerable. I appreciate that you offered the opinion "somewhat tentatively" though.

joefromchicago wrote:

Thomas wrote:
I would also suggest that you revisit the not-too-distant history of the city you're from. This should pour a bucket full of cold realism onto your assumption.

How recent? My city has a pretty colorful past.

That was my idea. It is full of examples why politicians aren't necessarily better than the mafiosi they regulate. At least the mafia would let you have a drink in the 20s, and didn't mind you protesting outside the Democratic convention in 1968.

joefromchicago wrote:

For the libertarian, this presents no problem, since the marketplace would inevitably punish any firm that consistently killed its customers. But, as I have mentioned in one of our previous discussions, this fact is little comfort to the consumers who die before the marketplace responds.

True. Of course, the same is true for the heart attack patients who died for lack of beta-blockers while the FDA was busy for 10 years considering the pharmaceutical companies' application. As I said, I'm not claiming that a nightwatchman state would bring us to utopia -- only to a better state than the one we now have.

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Well, after all of this, it looks like punishment will soon become more severe. Now we are expected to know who has been in treatment and who hasn't. Rolling Eyes

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010374.html

Quote:

Friday :: April 15, 2005

5 Years for Passing a Joint: Stop this Bill Now
Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner has launched his next assault on freedom. The full House Judiciary Committee is set to vote as early as next week on H.R. 1528, which creates a new group of mandatory miniumum penalties for non-violent drug offenses, including a five year penalty for passing a joint to someone who's been in drug treatment.

That's right: Passing a joint to someone who used to be in drug treatment will land you in federal prison for a minimum of five years.

The "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005" (H.R. 1528) was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on April 6, and it has already passed out of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Quote:

In addition to the shocking joint-passing provision described above,the bill would also create a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time conviction of distributing a small amount of marijuana to a person under 18 years of age ... and a 10-year sentence for a second offense of distributing marijuana to a person under 21. By comparison, the average time served by convicted rapists in this country is about seven years.

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Very sad, Squinney -- isn't compulsory puritanism awful?

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In high school some of my friends smoked pot. I did not, and did not know that they did at the time. We got into one friends car to go off campus for lunch one day and someone from the backseat passed a joint up to me. I took it, not realizing what it was, said no thanks and passed it on to someone else.

If one of my kids were to find themselves in that situation after this passes, they could go to prison rather than college? That is pretty awful!

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should marijuana be legalized??

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