Player FM 앱으로 오프라인으로 전환하세요!
Can America Win the War On Drugs... With Economics?
Manage episode 277316792 series 2780780
The war on drugs was declared in 1971 by president Richard Nixon in a press conference that went on to outline a plan to fight the trade of controlled substances across the world. Drugs were declared national enemy number 1.
Since then over 1 trillion dollars have been spent on fighting this battle and by all metrics, it has been money poorly spent.
It’s probably no surprise to anybody that drug-related deaths and crimes have done nothing but rise over the 50 years since Nixon made this declaration.
With the benefit of hindsight, it was pretty easy to see why... you can’t fight the forces of supply and demand in unregulated markets with m16’s and government agents.
Trying to do so would be like trying to fight a hurricane by dropping bombs on it. Not particularly effective and if anything it’s just going to cause even more collateral damage.
But perhaps this is all starting to change, just last week during the election, the people of Oregon also voted on something else that will potentially have even more influence than who the next president is.
The people of the state voted to decriminalize drugs, all drugs, even the hard stuff.
This might look like waving the white flag in defeat and finally admitting that drugs have won the war on drugs. But it might also be what we should have been doing all along, fighting the war on drugs with economics.
To understand what economists mean by this we will need to look at a few key areas.
- Why couldn’t the war on drugs disrupt this market?
- What is driving the growth in this market?
- And could legalization provide a better solution to dealing with this issue?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
217 에피소드
Manage episode 277316792 series 2780780
The war on drugs was declared in 1971 by president Richard Nixon in a press conference that went on to outline a plan to fight the trade of controlled substances across the world. Drugs were declared national enemy number 1.
Since then over 1 trillion dollars have been spent on fighting this battle and by all metrics, it has been money poorly spent.
It’s probably no surprise to anybody that drug-related deaths and crimes have done nothing but rise over the 50 years since Nixon made this declaration.
With the benefit of hindsight, it was pretty easy to see why... you can’t fight the forces of supply and demand in unregulated markets with m16’s and government agents.
Trying to do so would be like trying to fight a hurricane by dropping bombs on it. Not particularly effective and if anything it’s just going to cause even more collateral damage.
But perhaps this is all starting to change, just last week during the election, the people of Oregon also voted on something else that will potentially have even more influence than who the next president is.
The people of the state voted to decriminalize drugs, all drugs, even the hard stuff.
This might look like waving the white flag in defeat and finally admitting that drugs have won the war on drugs. But it might also be what we should have been doing all along, fighting the war on drugs with economics.
To understand what economists mean by this we will need to look at a few key areas.
- Why couldn’t the war on drugs disrupt this market?
- What is driving the growth in this market?
- And could legalization provide a better solution to dealing with this issue?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
217 에피소드
Minden epizód
×플레이어 FM에 오신것을 환영합니다!
플레이어 FM은 웹에서 고품질 팟캐스트를 검색하여 지금 바로 즐길 수 있도록 합니다. 최고의 팟캐스트 앱이며 Android, iPhone 및 웹에서도 작동합니다. 장치 간 구독 동기화를 위해 가입하세요.