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Perspectives
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The most important
movie of the year
By Jeffrey A. Miron
San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Sunday, March 25, 2001
Hollywood movies are not widely noted for their educational value.
But in a searing depiction of drug trafficking and the war on drugs, the
movie "Traffic" teaches much about the folly of drug prohibition.
Even if "Traffic" does not win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year,
it deserves the title Most Important Picture of the Year.
Lesson 1: Prohibition, not drug consumption, causes the violence often
attributed to drugs. "Traffic's" rival Mexican drug organizations
resort to cold-blooded murder because unlike ordinary business firms they
have no legal, nonviolent means to resolve disputes. In the United
States, the murder rate skyrocketed during alcohol prohibition but fell
once prohibition ended. Statistical research suggests that eliminating
drug prohibition in the United States today would reduce the murder rate
by 50 percent.
Lesson 2: Prohibition fosters corruption. Although many American
and Mexican law-enforcement officers are beyond reproach, financial temptation
will weaken some officers' and politicians' resolve to play by the rules.
Drug money corrupts, as police scandals in Los Angeles, New Orleans and
Washington, D.C., show only too well. The situation is even worse
in developing countries where wages are much lower than in the United
States and the threat of violence against honest judges and politicians
is frighteningly real.
Lesson 3: Prohibition enriches criminals at the expense of society generally.
In "Traffic," honest Mexican and American cops can afford only modest
lifestyles, but fictional drug kingpin Carlos Ayala lives in a plush seaside
mansion near San Diego. No hardworking American would object if
he earned this lifestyle through honest work, but prohibition increases
the wages of sin.
Lesson 4: Prohibition promotes violence and corruption in drug-producing
countries while ensuring the viability of political insurgents, who sell
protective services to traffickers. Notwithstanding Mexican President
Vicente Fox's recent trial balloon announcement that we would enjoy less
violence and corruption if drugs were legalized, the specter of international
condemnation renders this possibility academic.
Lesson 5: Prohibition exacerbates racial conflict, since enforcement inevitably
targets minorities even when drug use and trafficking pervade all elements
of society. As one sassy teen in "Traffic" says, law-enforcement
comes down more heavily on the politically and socially disenfranchised,
and the drugs they use.
Mid-Term Exam: What are some evils of prohibition beyond those highlighted
in "Traffic?"
Answer: Prohibition diverts police resources from deterring other kinds
of crime. If we ended the war on drugs, we could devote many more
police, prosecutors, judges and jailers to the apprehension, conviction
and incarceration of criminals who commit violent crimes against body
and property. Prohibition causes overdoses and accidental poisonings
because quality control is poor in underground markets. Prohibition
prevents the use of marijuana as medicine, although more potent drugs
like cocaine and morphine can be legally prescribed. Prohibition
increases the spread of AIDS by discouraging the legal sale of clean needles.
Prohibition destroys respect for the law because, despite Draconian enforcement,
drug law violations are rampant, leading many to believe that compliance
with the law is for suckers. And prohibition costs tens of billions
of dollars each year for police, prisons and the like.
Final Exam: What should be done?
Answer: Make drugs legal again. Before 1914, when federal law first
criminalized drugs, many persons used drugs, and some suffered ill effects.
But this was a problem mainly for users, their families and their doctors,
not a social problem of immense proportions.
If drugs were re-legalized, there would still be problems related to drug
use, and use would probably increase. But in a free society individuals
get to make their own choices, good or bad. And the reduced violence
and corruption, along with the other benefits of legalization, would accrue
to all elements of society, drug using or not.
No one -- especially not those involved in law enforcement or drug policy
- -- believes we can "win" the war on drugs. Even with state-of-the
art technology, a U.S. drug enforcement officer at the Mexican border
tells "Traffic's" American drug czar, played by actor Michael Douglas,
that their resources don't come close to those of the Mexican drug lords.
"Traffic's" important achievement has been to popularize truths about
the war on drugs that many in Washington know, but few have the courage
to acknowledge.
Miron is professor of economics at Boston University; research fellow
at The Independent Institute, a public policy research institute focusing
on government reform; and president of Bastiat Institute in Wellesley,
Mass., a research institute exploring the libertarian perspective on public
policy.
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