Will America Become Detroit, Part 4: The End of the Victimless Crime Spree

"Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
- William F. Buckley, Jr.

"Oh what a delight to
Be given the right to
Be care free and gay once again"
- From "Cocktails for Two" by by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow

Some of humanity's greatest advances emerged from severe crises. As bad as the looming U.S. debt crisis is, it will force badly needed reforms in our criminal code. This nation devotes and a tremendous amount of resources prosecuting victimless crimes, especially the war on drugs. This relentless pursuit of adults engaging in consensual behavior is wasteful, ineffective, and frequently violates our civil liberties. But this particular form of government overreach will almost certainly end, and it will do for a rather mundane reason: the state simply won't have the funds to continue.

Prohibition Repeal as the Ultimate Rent Party

There is a historical precedent for the immanent demise of most victimless crimes. Consider the Volstead act, commonly known as prohibition. This forerunner of the war on drugs banned intoxicating alcoholic beverages. Even though the failures of this act became apparent soon after the act's passage in 1919, it was not repealed until 1933. What happened in 1933 that finally did in the Volstead act?

In part, prohibition was ended by the great depression. At a time when the economic downturn was drying up tax revenue, governments were saddled with the substantial costs of enforcing prohibition. Moreover, keeping bars and liquor closed also closed off a badly needed source of tax revenue. When it became clear that prohibition could only be continued by asking an impoverished public to tighten their belts still further, the prohibition repeal effort passed overwhelmingly.

The Volstead Act on Crack

If 1930's depression era America found prohibition too dear a luxury, then twenty-first century debt crisis America will almost certainly reject its even more expensive offshoot, the war on drugs. Essentially, the war on drugs is the Volstead Act on Crack. Consider these expenses:

Jail House Rock

Key element of the war on drugs is harsh minimum sentences for drug offenses and extremely aggressive enforcement. Since President Nixon kicked off the war on drugs in 1971, American incarceration rates have more than quadrupled. We now hold the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. We have more prisoners than all of China, which has four times our general population. We jail a larger portion of our black population than did Apartheid era South Africa.

The costs of all these prisoners is straining state budgets.
California pays $45,563 a year to keep a man in prison, so now the Golden state spends more on jails than it does on universities. And that does not even could the loss of tax revenue from taking these prisoners out of the economy. Longitudinal studies show an even greater expense: those serving lengthy drug sentences are less likely to ever become a productive member of society.

In the past, the mantra of the drug warrior has been that it is important to "send a message" to users of illicit drugs. But as states such as California and Michigan face the threat of default, they are bound to ask if we could please send this message via Western Union.

Putting the War into "The War on Drugs"

The war on drugs quickly took up a large portion of law enforcement efforts at all levels. It even has its own enforcement agency, the DEA, which has spend $536 billion on drug enforcement since its inception in 1973. (See the suitable tacky DEA museum gift shop). But victimless crimes are notoriously hard to enforce. When this effort fell short, harsher tactics such as SWAT teams and no-knock raids were tried. Some police departments have even acquired military equipment from the DOD. When they called it the "War on Drugs", they were not kidding!

Like most wars, this one has had plenty of collateral damage. There have been raids on the wrong house that have resulted in innocent people or even pets getting shot. To be fair, raids on real drug dealers are highly dangerous operations, so police are bound to make mistakes in these high stress situations. But this is a danger of our own making. The day prohibition was repealed, the bootlegger gangs went out of business, and with their demise, there was a marked decrease in gang violence. Drug decriminalization would likely have the same effect, saving us both money and lives.

Too Poor to Keep Screwing Up

Due to budget constraints, Detroit has had to make cuts in its police force. In order to protect themselves, some of this city's citizens have formed a citizen's group called Detroit 300 that patrols the streets that Detroit's finest used to patrol. Not surprisingly, all the crimes that Detroit 300 deal with are crimes with victims: rape, robbery, assult, murder, etc. They are not chasing down dope smokers. When hard choices have to be made, enforcing victimless crimes is the first thing to go.

As the nation's debt crisis comes to a head, we will forced to take the same approach as Detroit 300. There are many better reasons to end the war on drugs, but it will definitely end for one reason: we cannot afford it. Lack of funds will force our government to do the right thing.

Speaking of victimless crimes, check out the documentary Derrick J's Victimless Crime Spree, where one activist gets into an amazing amount of legal trouble for peaceably protesting his local public officials.

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre Out West

"If you have a lot of what people want and can't get, then you can supply the demand and shovel in the dough."
- Lucky Luciano

"Tell me why are we, so blind to see
That the ones we hurt, are you and me?"
- From "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio

Arizona Senate Bill 1070, the country's strictest anti-illegal immigration legislation, has generated a lot of discussion from both sides of the political spectrum. But somehow, nearly everyone avoids talking about the root causes of the crisis that spawned SB 1070.

Arizona is suffering from a meteoric rise in violent crime, including murders, assaults and human trafficking. Most of this crime is caused by Mexican organized crime groups. In just a few short years, Phoenix has become the kidnapping capital of the western hemisphere. It is totally understandable that many Arizonians would want to take action. The public outcry over the brutal slaying of 58 year old rancher Robert Krentz and his dog made some sort of action inevitable.

SB 1070 , like most legislation produced from a panic, unfortunately has some serious flaws. The bill aims to cut down on illegal immigration. The premise is that without illegal immigrants from Mexico, we would have no Mexican crime cartels. This simplistic approach to the crime would negatively affect law-abiding immigrants without really addressing the real cause of the crime wave.

Why did the Mexican cartels invade Arizona in recent years? After all, the flood of Mexican immigrants has been going on for decades now. This question could be answered by looking south of the border. The cartels have been active in Mexico and South America for decades, demonstrating all the brutality that Arizona is now experiencing. Mexico has fought back by liberalizing its drug policy, eliminating much of the profit of the cartel's activities. The cartels have therefore moved to greener pastures up North, where our continuing war on drugs guarantees them artificially high profits.

But couldn't SB 1070 keep the cartels out of the US? Frankly, I doubt it, but let us assume that Sb 1070 was 100% effective at keeping out the Mexican cartels. Does anyone really believe that some other organized crime group would not pick up the slack? A quick check of INTERPOL will show that the Albanian Rudaj Organization, the Russian Bratva, the Chinese Triads, and even the Japanese Yakuza are active in the U.S. Any one of these groups would love to take over the drug trade. SB 1070, even if it accomplished all of its goals, would do little more than change the identity of the gangs performing the kidnappings and murders.

The cause of the problem is really the war on drugs, and hence the solution is to bring this ill fated war to an end. Consider the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929. The public outcry over this brutal mob hit brought Prohibition into question. It soon became clear that the crime and corruption caused by prohibition far outweighed its benefits. So let us view the Robert Krentz execution as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of our time: a horrific crime that reveals that the war on drugs extracts a price on us all that is too high to pay.