PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader:

Drug laws were passed (and supported by almost everyone in Congress) in reaction to soaring crime rates caused by drugs.

And, it turns out, the "War on Drugs" saved the U.S. trillions of dollars in other social costs.

The reality is tough laws work, like hanging horse thieves.

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This is further proof Prohibition and drug laws is a weak comparison.

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It’s the difference between a poor policy and a good policy, in conception and implementation.

Sort of like comparing the Obama economic recovery to the Reagan economic recovery.

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/12/quotations-of-the-day-william-howard-taft-and-the-ny-times/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Making drugs as popular as alcohol would be a big mistake. For example, it would have a negative impact on the U.S. workforce:

A study by the Federal Government found that those who illicitly used drugs are:

3.6 times more likely to injure themselves or another person in a workplace accident.

5 times more likely to be injured in an accident off the job which, in turn, affects their attendance and/or performance on the job.

5 times more likely to file a Workers’ Compensation claim.

One-third less productive than non-drug using employees.

Incur 300% higher medical costs than non-drug using employees.

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Employee drug-use was documented in a study which found that, of those employees seeking help on a “cocaine hotline”:

64% admitted that drugs had adversely affected their job performance.

44% said they had sold drugs to other employees.

18% said they had stolen from co-workers to support their habits.

http://www.yoursassi.com/Why.aspx

“Drug abuse affects all citizens in the form of higher taxes, higher insurance rates, more crime, higher health care costs, and higher consumer prices.”

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Rich Berger:

PT

It is interesting that all your statistics come from one source, which is a company that does drug testing. If there is a problem with drugs being used at work or the after effects of drugs carrying over to work, why not allow the company to test. It appears that drug use is more prevalent in unskilled positions, so the extrapolation to the entire economy is problematic.

Finally, if these stats are correct, they reflect a result under the current prohibition regime, which has not been able to prevent abuse. You are completely ignoring Dr. Perry’s catalogue of harmful effects of the drug war. The key question is: would the harmful effects of ending prohibition be worse than the beneficial effects of eliminating the drug war (e.g., reducing the number of federal prisoners, redirecting law enforcement to more vital concerns). The illegality of the drug trade is also a major source of violence as disputes must be settled by force.

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PeakTrader:

Rich Berger, I’m not ignoring the costs of the “War on Drugs.” I’ve been showing scientific, medical, and economic evidence that without the “War on Drugs,” the costs would be many times higher.

The costs of drug abuse are much greater, and wide-ranging, than some people realize or want to believe.

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Rich Berger:

Do you even read your own posts? You are showing your measurement of the costs of drug use under the current prohibition regime and assuming those costs would be higher if prohibition were ended. You may be correct, but you are speculating, not measuring an actual increase.

OTOH, you are ignoring the actual costs cited by Dr. Perry under current conditions. The net cost/benefits of an end to the war on drugs would be your speculative increase weighed against the elimination of the current bad effects cited by Dr. Perry.

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PeakTrader:

I’ve shown the actual costs of drug usage is much higher than some people assume, whether drugs are legal or not. Also, it’s logical to assume when you legalize something, you get more of it, which is also supported by the data (including when drug laws were lax and lenient in the 1960s).

With drug laws, the costs of drug usage is very small compared to the social costs. And, the benefits of legalizing drugs would be very small compared to the increases in social costs.

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In other words, I’m using actual data to show the costs of drug laws are much smaller than the social costs of drug usage, and any benefits from legalizing drugs would be very small compared to the increases in social costs.

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