Democracy In Albany

This weekend, I came across a very interesting organization while doing research for a project I am doing for an economic class. I am looking at the social and economic cost of the drug war. I was doing an analysis on prohibition, decriminalization and legalization. I stuble across an organization called Leap, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. This is a group of ex police officers, prosecutors and judges who want drug policy reform now.

The one thing that stuck out about this organization was the Upstate New York connection. If you go to their website, www.leap.org you will find a video where a former drug warrior from Buffalo and the City of Syracuse's police auditor talk about he social and economic cost of the drug war. It also talk about David Soares and how he also feels that this war is causing more harm then good.

To sum it, the City of Syracuse reported that the bulk of their police resources go to the drug war. In the US alone we spend 9 billion dollars on this war, and what success do we see. Take for instance Albany, a city that over the past twenty years has become a hotbed of narcotic activity. We probably spend millions on enforcing drugs laws which eat away resources for healthcare, schools, and other things. I am also sure that our prisons are jam packed with non-violent drug offenders. Yet still, we see the same exact scenario play over and over again, and its getting worse not better.

The major goal of this organization is to incrementally work towards drug legalization. They want this because they note that the drug war is unconstitutional and also causes more of the problems it seeks to stop. Look at the economic motive involved here. Think back to the prohibition of Alcohol. This period caused an increase in gangs, violence and abuse of booze. We realized one day that we would never be able to stop the flow and usage of drugs, hence we decided to legalize it and instead regulate.

Is it to much to say that the same logic applies to the current drug war. Cities like Albany, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse are in dire straits financially right now. I can bet much of this is due to the cost of enforcing the drug war. Imagine if we instead legalized drugs and sold them in government run stores and also invested in drug treatment.

Doing so would take the profit motive from selling drugs which in turn would reduce the illicit elements involved in it. We would see a reduction in gangs, we would see our prison population decrease and we would also be able to focus more resources to fighting other crime and have more money for things like schools.