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Entry: The War on Drugs Has Its Advantages Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_war_on_drugs_has_its_benefits#24739 Post contents: I distinguish avaricious criminals trying to make a quick buck on other people's misery--drug dealers and pimps--from white collar offenders and gun carrying citizens because, I hypothesize the rates of recidivism for are much higher in the cases of drug dealers and pimps than they are for guys paving over parking lots and carrying a gun in their glove box for self defense. The reason is that one of these behaviors is anti-social and unnecessary, the latter are easy to commit by accident or involve laudable motives like defense of self, hearth, and home. I don't see why it's tyranny to accomplish an important goal, stopping violence, by creating an easy-to-prove offense that sorts out avaricious law-breakers from the ordinary community. This is kind of my point. There are people called criminals. They are anti-social. What they do is what we ordinarily think of as crime. Some of it is statutory like drug-dealing, but much of it has been a crime since ancient times like murder, rape, robbery, extortion, etc. There are other people who are basically law-abiding, but sometimes get caught in the net of malum prohibitum offenses. Anti-social criminals deal drugs; they also commit many other crimes. And exhibit A is that when we lock up lots of them, violent crime goes down (just as it went down a great deal during the higher incarceration/institutionalization rates of the 1950s). Yes, I understand there are other causes, but the Levitt paper cited above does a good job of disaggregating causes and high incarceration for drug offenses, particularly of young minority men, is having a big impact. And, frankly, I find the suggestion that "rent a cops" are why crime is going down kind of laughable, but I will read the paper. All this stuff about the drug dealers' natural rights and the state being a "criminal" is kind of laughable. We need a government, otherwise the barbarians will take over. Sometimes it taxes too much and pursues bad policies, but America today is no tyranny, and anarchic places like Somalia or Lebanon are, quite frankly, plaes you wouldn't want to live. Intemperate language on this issue is one of many reasons libertarians have no credibility and are boring to talk to. Ideally the goverment does the bidding of the law-abiding productive class and keeps anti-social types and the unproductive in line. Drug laws do this well, and they sensibly distinguish the comparatively less harmful users from dealers. You need food, clothing, and shelter and have a right to earn a living, worship God, protect yourself, and pursue a virtuous life. You don't need to get rich quick selling crack, using violence to preserve your gang's turf. These are bad people; I'm glad we can identify them easily with drug laws. Consider the implicit assumption of the prohibition argument: Bloods, Crips, and other gangs would just suddenly quit being scumbags if drug dealing were legalized. These drug dealers are not going to get jobs where they have to show respect for their boss, show up on time, and cut off their "corn rows" if drugs were legalized tomorrow, just as the mafia did not disappear in the 1950s,instead switching its focus to such varied rackets as extortion, the garment industry, prostitution, and gambling. I'd frankly rather have the natural scumbags directed towards drug dealing--which is easy to find and prove--than have them move to commercial kidnapping, child prostitution, or something worse. Sent at: 2008 07 20