US Drug Policy: New Challenges and Potential Lessons from Portugal

Executive Summary:

-          Topic: the costs of US drug policy and potential solutions

-          Barro discusses externalities of US drug policy in Peru; today, Mexico has a lot more drug-related problems (at least in part as a result of our drug policies), which, because of Mexico’s proximity to us, naturally impacts the US more.

-          Within the US itself, US drug policy presents various costs and potential benefits, which we must balance to understand the optimal outcome and policy. This is difficult because of the nature of the issue – accurate data is very hard to find.

-          Country case studies of decriminalization and legalization exist. I investigate Portugal’s decriminalization in depth; it has achieved moderate success, and success in certain significant objectives.

-          Portugal’s policy may not work precisely the same in the US, but there seems to be some potential to adopt some of Portugal’s approaches, particularly with respect to softer drugs (e.g. cannabis).

I found Barro’s commentary on US drug policy in relation to the political and economic situation in Peru in the 1990s interesting, particularly with relation to the pervasive power of the terrorist group, the Shining Path. It seems to me that this commentary has particular relevance today, as it seems as if the costs and benefits surrounding US drug policy have shifted slightly. Rather than the Shining Light in Peru, now we have Mexican drug cartels, which have been estimated to have killed over 50,000 Mexicans since 2006. As the graph below shows, monthly death tolls have been increasing steadily over at least the past five years:

Furthermore, corruption among public officials and particularly police is very common and drug cartels present a real threat to political power.

Because Mexico borders the United States, the extent of this drug-related violence impacts us more directly than it did when it took place in Peru. Additionally, there are other costs of to the United States as well – particularly the cost of enforcing prohibition, including the caseloads in the criminal justice system. Certainly, there are costs to drug use as well, to the tune of $190.3 billion in 2007 (Pacula). Imaginably, such costs could increase with legalization or decriminalization.

To understand the merits and disadvantages of the US prohibition on drugs, we have to be able to balance these costs and benefits. Yet because of the illegal nature of drugs, it is often very difficult to gather accurate data on use rates and trends, prices, and so on. One potential guide is looking at countries that legalize or decriminalize drugs, such as Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs in 2001. As Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens found, some results from Portugal were mixed or inconclusive, yet problematic drug use declined slightly as it increased in other countries in the region (such as Italy or Spain). At the least, decriminalization did not seem to increase drug use any more beyond the trend occurring in other countries at the time.

Furthermore, the criminal justice system has seen many benefits, starting with a reasonably stable level of drug caseloads (with an expected drop in criminal offenses, replaced by administrative offenses) even as its neighbor, Spain, saw a significant increase in comparable offenses. This discrepancy suggests that Portugal’s system under decriminalization, which essentially refers minor offenders to a panel that will provide sanctions like community service or recommend treatment for dependent users, operates a lot more efficiently. In line with this trend, the proportion of prisoners committed for drug-related offenses dropped from 44% to 21%, contributing to a serious decrease in prison density (from 119 prisoners per 100 prison places in 2001 to 101.5 in 2005) that all but eliminated overcrowding. Additionally, drug prices decreased dramatically (insofar as one could accurately track that within a black market), suggesting the possibility of decreased supply and demand. Indeed, police in Portugal had more success in seizing amounts of drugs in sizes clearly meant for commercial sale and distribution.

Perhaps the best outcomes for Portugal have been in terms of health. Particularly, Portugal saw a decline in drug-related deaths overall after decriminalization and especially an even greater decline in opiate-related deaths specifically (from 95 percent of drug related deaths in 1999 to 59 percent in 2008). There has also been a significant reduction in AIDS and HIV cases among drug users - from 506 to 108 and 907 to 267 respectively from 2000 to 2008.

Of course, Portugal is not the United States, and we should expect that the outcomes of such a health-oriented decriminalization would be different here. Particularly, as a large country without a nationalized or federally organized health care system, offering widespread, effective treatment to dependent or problematic drug users would likely be very difficult. Furthermore, Portugal's approach does not offer us much insight into how to prevent drug-related violence from crossing over our borders, as Portugal does not seem to face a similar issue. Even considering this, though, there might be potential to decrease public spending on the criminal justice system (if not decreasing violence and other costs as well) through decriminalizing or legalizing certain “softer” drugs that have far lower rates of death, addiction, and other harmful health effects while maintaining drug use prevention and education efforts. Indeed, many states have already enacted such measures regarding cannabis; it will be interesting to see in the next few decades what the data says about the impact of these laws. That said, a significant portion of the worst impacts of drugs (both in terms of negative health outcomes for users, violence, and so on) come from “harder” drugs (i.e. opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc). I don’t know that legalization or even decriminalization is necessarily the answer here, but more research and exploration of policy options would certainly help given the immense human costs currently associated with drug trafficking and use.

Sources Used:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10681249
http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/6/999.full#ref-40
http://www.cis.yale.edu/macmillan/newsletter/rethinking-war-on-drugs.pdf#page=159
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2138396?seq=2