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"tax and regulate" isn't immune from second-order effects either. Set the tax high enough and you'll get smuggling gangs with all the same tendencies.

by jl6 8d ago

achenet 8d ago
no, it's not a perfect system, but better. Look at the alcohol market in the U.S. Or even the tightly controlled Systembolaget [0] in Sweden, compared to the modern markets for cannabis and cocaine. Tax and regulate lowers violence and increases tax revenue, outright prohibition/making it illegal increases violence and lowers tax revenue. I do believe "sin prohibition" policies, for not just drugs but gambling, prostitution, etc, are one example of "low-hanging fruit", where there is a noticeably better option that is usually not implemented. Really, for all trades usually controlled by violent criminals (so everything the Mafia/Yakuza/crime groups traditionally specialize in), I believe that the citizens of a given state will be happier if the trade is controlled by the state and not given over to criminals, which is functionally what "make it illegal" does. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget
- jl6 8d ago
  I don't think it's at all obvious that a regulation-based approach could produce better outcomes than a prohibition-based approach. No doubt prohibition causes much violence and misery, but prohibition was a response to other great harms, most famously the condition of opium addicts. Rather than rehash the arguments for and against, I would ask a meta-question: if the matter really were so clear, then why, over the last ~200 years, did every country introduce a prohibition-based stance, and why has no country switched to tax-and-regulate?
  - achenet 8d ago
    > if the matter really were so clear, then why, over the last ~200 years, did every country introduce a prohibition-based stance, and why has no country switched to tax-and-regulate? First off, you do have countries switching over to tax-and-regulate, Canada, for example, some U.S. states, countries in Europe (Germany, Netherlands). But to answer the question of countries going to prohibition-based instead of tax-and-regulate - off the top of my head 1) US-led world order + US deciding to ban a bunch of drugs for political reasons (I hear, from multiple sources that discriminating against Mexican immigrants was one reason cannabis was outlawed, Reagan and his whole 'War on Drugs' schtick...) 2) tradition - have you noticed that, also for the last ~200 years, basically all world leaders, from French presidents to the Emperor of Japan, will dress in the style of the English monarch George IV (and, more precisely, in the the style George IV copied from Beau Brummell)? We ban drugs because that's what we're used to doing. Our leaders dress in suits because that's what we expect them to do. 3) naive ignorance - much as how, for hundreds if not thousands of years, "sacrifice a bull" was considered the state of the art in ensuring that there would be water for the crops, people growing up with no additional knowledge will often arrive at "ban it" as a logical way to handle a social ill, even if, as those who have suffered the negative consequences [0][1] know, "ban it" generally just makes the problem worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Laredo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Laredo [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war Source [1] notes "Analysts estimate wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually". Not the illicit part. The market is there, even if outlawed. Dozens of billion of dollars per year, and if you tax-and-regulate, all of a sudden you've got billions in tax revenue to help you "respond to social harms, such as the condition of opium addicts".
- brainwad 8d ago
  BTW, Australia has shown the limits of sin taxation with our very high tobacco taxes. They got so high we induced a criminal black market in tobacco, that now is very hard to eradicate and is causing gang warfare, etc. Given we now have the crime anyway, maybe banning tobacco would have better outcomes than taxing it at this point.

"tax and regulate" isn't immune from second-order effects either. Set the tax high enough and you'll get smuggling gangs with all the same tendencies.

by jl6 8d ago

"tax and regulate" isn't immune from second-order effects either. Set the tax high enough and you'll get smuggling gangs with all the same tendencies.

achenet 8d ago

no, it's not a perfect system, but better. Look at the alcohol market in the U.S. Or even the tightly controlled Systembolaget [0] in Sweden, compared to the modern markets for cannabis and cocaine. Tax and regulate lowers violence and increases tax revenue, outright prohibition/making it illegal increases violence and lowers tax revenue. I do believe "sin prohibition" policies, for not just drugs but gambling, prostitution, etc, are one example of "low-hanging fruit", where there is a noticeably better option that is usually not implemented. Really, for all trades usually controlled by violent criminals (so everything the Mafia/Yakuza/crime groups traditionally specialize in), I believe that the citizens of a given state will be happier if the trade is controlled by the state and not given over to criminals, which is functionally what "make it illegal" does. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget

jl6 8d ago
I don't think it's at all obvious that a regulation-based approach could produce better outcomes than a prohibition-based approach. No doubt prohibition causes much violence and misery, but prohibition was a response to other great harms, most famously the condition of opium addicts. Rather than rehash the arguments for and against, I would ask a meta-question: if the matter really were so clear, then why, over the last ~200 years, did every country introduce a prohibition-based stance, and why has no country switched to tax-and-regulate?
- achenet 8d ago
  > if the matter really were so clear, then why, over the last ~200 years, did every country introduce a prohibition-based stance, and why has no country switched to tax-and-regulate? First off, you do have countries switching over to tax-and-regulate, Canada, for example, some U.S. states, countries in Europe (Germany, Netherlands). But to answer the question of countries going to prohibition-based instead of tax-and-regulate - off the top of my head 1) US-led world order + US deciding to ban a bunch of drugs for political reasons (I hear, from multiple sources that discriminating against Mexican immigrants was one reason cannabis was outlawed, Reagan and his whole 'War on Drugs' schtick...) 2) tradition - have you noticed that, also for the last ~200 years, basically all world leaders, from French presidents to the Emperor of Japan, will dress in the style of the English monarch George IV (and, more precisely, in the the style George IV copied from Beau Brummell)? We ban drugs because that's what we're used to doing. Our leaders dress in suits because that's what we expect them to do. 3) naive ignorance - much as how, for hundreds if not thousands of years, "sacrifice a bull" was considered the state of the art in ensuring that there would be water for the crops, people growing up with no additional knowledge will often arrive at "ban it" as a logical way to handle a social ill, even if, as those who have suffered the negative consequences [0][1] know, "ban it" generally just makes the problem worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Laredo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Laredo [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war Source [1] notes "Analysts estimate wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually". Not the illicit part. The market is there, even if outlawed. Dozens of billion of dollars per year, and if you tax-and-regulate, all of a sudden you've got billions in tax revenue to help you "respond to social harms, such as the condition of opium addicts".
brainwad 8d ago
BTW, Australia has shown the limits of sin taxation with our very high tobacco taxes. They got so high we induced a criminal black market in tobacco, that now is very hard to eradicate and is causing gang warfare, etc. Given we now have the crime anyway, maybe banning tobacco would have better outcomes than taxing it at this point.