Question

Policy makers in some states argue that criminalization of drugs is inefficient and that the same level of drug consumption can be achieved through decriminalization, regulation, and taxation. What are the costs and benefits associated with enforcement, prosecution, and punishment with respect to drug laws, and the costs and benefits with respect to decriminalization, regulation, and taxation?

Answer 1

This is a very important aspect of legal framework of a country or an economy to decriminalize drugs or not because there are many social costs associated with it. The youth is mostly attracted to drugs and some of them are very addictive. So if they decriminalize drugs, a country may lose its biggest asset which is youth.

So if we analyze the first aspect of it which is enforcement, prosecution, and punishment with respect to drug laws. Following are some points about it:

• If there are strict regulations or punishments and penalties, many people start selling them in the black market which is a loss of taxes to the govt. and a very huge cost of enforcement, prosecution, and punishment with respect to drug laws.
• Govt. has to keep a strict vigilance over the people involved in this drug trade and the people may concentrate larger economic powers which are unaccounted to the govt.
• We often hear of mafia dons who are very rich by smuggling drugs. So there is a huge loss to the govt. in this case in terms of taxes.

On the under hand, if the govt. decriminalizes the same there are various losses involved to it such as:

Loss of youth power which is very important resource of an economy to grow. If one wants to spoil a country, they can do it by making the youth addictive to drugs and we can see many historic evidences to it.

But the solution to the same can be to educate the youth about drugs and if they are rational enough to choose what is right and what is wrong for them, they can make good choices. By enforcing laws it becomes a curiosity for the people to try those things. We can take the reference from the concept of Law of Demand here if the supply is too low people will like to try and if it is common to see drugs in the society people may get educated from real experiences about to try or not to try them.

The government may limit it to a few areas. So people who want to try the drugs may visit those areas and there should be proper regulations and guidelines to those areas.