1

The Balloon Effect: The Failure of Supply Side Strategies in the War on Drugs

Author: Charles Laffiteau

Abstract

More Than 10 years ago Dr. Ernest Drucker wrote that The current model of drug
control relies primarily on law enforcement to seize drugs and imprison drug offenders.
While these efforts have produced large numbers of arrests, incarcerations and seizures,
drug overdose deaths have increased 540% since 1980 and drug-related problems have
worsened. This research paper will discuss the Balloon Effect as one of, if not the
primary, reasons why supply side strategies have not decreased the availability and or use
of illegal drugs. The Balloon Effect is an economic term that describes what happens
when, given a fairly elastic supply function, temporary supply reductions lead to higher
prices which in term stimulates greater supply production. In Part I, this paper reviews
government attempts to reduce supplies of a wide range of different types of illegal drugs
over the last 50 years in an attempt to ascertain if there is any evidence that supply
reduction strategies have ever been successful. In Part II it examines misconceptions
about drugs and harm reduction strategies, decriminalization and or legalization as more
viable options going forward. The paper concludes in Part III with some suggestions and
recommendations for a more effective national and international drug control strategy.

Part I
Dr. Ernest Drucker, a founding board member of the International Journal on
Drug Policy, says that, The current model of drug control relies primarily on law
enforcement to seize drugs and imprison drug offenders. While these efforts have
produced large numbers of arrests, incarcerations and seizures, drug overdose deaths
have increased 540% since 1980 and drug-related problems have worsened.
1
This
research paper attempts to answer the research question, Why have government efforts
over the last fifty years to reduce illegal drug use and abuse not succeeded? In an effort
to answer this question this paper will examine the supply reduction efforts of the United
States and discuss why the Balloon Effect is one of the primary reasons supply side
strategies have not and will not work to decrease the availability or use of illegal drugs.

1
Dr. Ernest Drucker "Drug Prohibition and Public Health." Public Health Reports U.S. Public Health
Service. Vol. 114 (Jan./Feb.1998):24
2
According to Robert MacCoun, a professor of Law and Public policy at the
University of California and Peter Reuter, an economist at the University of Maryland,
retail sales of illegal drugs in the US are worth approximately $60 billion while global
retail sales are probably around $150 billion, about half the sales of the (legitimate) world
pharmaceutical industry and in the same league as consumer spending on legal drugs
such as tobacco ($204 billion) and alcohol ($252 billion).
2

The first supply side method the United States tried to use was attempting to
interdict drugs at the US border, which has since been shown to be an unrealistic strategy
given the size of the country and the thousands of miles of shoreline and unprotected
borders. Cocaine is but one example of the governments recognition of the failure of this
tactic almost 20 years ago: It is true that as interdiction expenditures have grown, the
amount of cocaine seized has also grown dramatically: whereas in 1981 interdictors
seized 1.7 tons of cocaine, the total may have been as high as 40 tons in 1987.
Nonetheless, not only did total imports apparently increase, but the price of cocaine, at
both the import and retail levels, also fell rapidly.
3

A more recent effort to eradicate illegal drugs at the source has also proven to be
ineffective at either reducing the supply of illegal drugs or raising the wholesale or retail
prices for them. This tactic inevitably leads to new sources of supply being developed
and brought on-line or to production of more lucrative (profitable) illegal substances.
Colombia was originally a major supplier of marijuana imports to the United
States in the 1970s, prior to an increase in law enforcement efforts to stop the smuggling

2
Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter. Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, & Places.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
3
Ralph A. Weisheit 1990. Drugs, Crime and the Criminal Justice System(Westport CT : Greenwood Press,
1990): 14-15

3
of this drug towards the end of that decade. Colombian smugglers then turned their
attention to another drug (which was not as bulky, was easier to conceal and transport and
was also more financially lucrative) called cocaine. They set up processing labs in
Colombia, turning cocoa leaves into paste and cocaine that they could easily ship to the
US and Europe. They used the same smuggling routes and tactics they had been using for
marijuana along with a wider array of methods to conceal this particular illegal drug.
The cocaine industry that grew in Colombia toward the mid-1970s began as a
manufacturing and marketing enterprise that imported the cocoa paste or base from
Bolivia and Peru; some chemical precursor products were imported from the United
States, while others were obtained locally. Success promoted the establishment of
domestic cocoa-growing as an import-substituting agricultural development.
4

Using cocoa eradication efforts in the Andes region of Latin America as an
example of the shortcomings of this supply reduction policy, one need only look at the
growth of Colombia from a role of processor of cocoa leaves grown in Peru and Bolivia,
to its current position as the largest producer of cocoa in the world. By 1998, Colombia
had become the worlds largest cocoa producer ahead of Peru (U.S. Department of State,
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs 1998,22).
5
Eradication
efforts in the main cocoa growing regions of Peru and Bolivia were only moderately
successful and were resisted by the local, mainly indigenous Indian growers. It is also
hard to determine the effectiveness of eradication efforts because cocoa is a very hearty
plant which is difficult to kill. But as a consequence of these eradication campaigns the

4
Francisco E. Thoumi. 1995, Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers Inc., 1995):132
5
Francisco E. Thoumi. 2003, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes (Washington D.C.:
Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003): 88
4
illegal cocaine traffic was a strong incentive for the development of cocoa plantings in
Colombia: which appeared as a backward linkage of the cocaine (processing) during the
mid-1970s (Thoumi 1995d, chap3).
6
From the perspective of an economist, The
conjunction of these factors allowed Colombians to create the countrys international
competitive advantage in cocaine manufacturing and distribution.
7
But with this rise to
world wide prominence as the #1 cocaine producer, came some unwanted pressure from
the Colombian government, which was looking to the US as a source of economic
development funds and military aid to fight a long festering leftist guerilla movement.
Since late 1989 the Colombian government has been able to increase pressure on the
illegal drug industry and it appears there has been some manufacturing displacement out
of Colombia. Similarly, other Peruvian and Bolivian organizations have increased their
cocaine market share in the United States.
8
The following Table 1 graphically illustrates
the balloon effect of supply reduction strategies in these Andean countries.
Table 1


6
Thoumi. Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes :85
7
Thoumi. Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia :175
8
Thoumi. Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia :175
5
Marijuana eradication efforts have also failed to reduce the supply for anything
other than short periods of time. The 1960s growth in psychoactive drug consumption
in the US and Europe triggered the development of large marijuana plantings in Mexico
and Jamaica. Toward the end of that decade, the U.S. government promoted eradication
programs in Mexico using paraquat, a herbicide known to have harmful health effects,
which drove away American consumers. This measure created strong incentives to find
other marijuana growing sites, and the marijuana crop was then displaced to Colombia
(Tokatlian 1990,300)
9
Colombia began to grow marijuana close to the Caribbean with
easy access to the boats used to smuggle the drug back to the United States. The profits
attracted growers in other regions of the country where remote landing strips could be
used to fly the contraband to the US or other transit points for smuggling drugs. But the
combination of a Colombian government eradication campaign (in the original growing
region of Sierra Nevada) and the growth of the US domestic marijuana industry helped
shift smugglers focus to cocaine as their next source of illegal drug related income.
But Colombian eradication did not reduce demand according to the 2005 National
Drug Threat Assessment: Demand is higher for marijuana than for any other illicit drug,
and the constancy of this demand over time has ensured marijuana's ready availability
and profitability. No less than 75 percent of illicit drug users in the United States aged 12
or older--an estimated 14.6 million persons--reported current use of marijuana in 2003.
Such a sizable user population, encompassing persons of wide-ranging ages, both
genders, and diverse origins residing in areas urban to rural, equates to steady profits.
10


9
Thoumi. Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes: 81
10
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Intelligence Center National Drug Threat
Assessment 2005 : 21
6
Since the demand for marijuana has remained fairly constant since the 70s, new
domestic sources of supply have developed which do not run the same risk of seizure
previously encountered by cannabis smugglers and importers. Domestic growers in the
US operate smaller, harder to detect indoor gardens or grow their crops on public lands
in US national forests and parks. But this domestic variety of pot is also much more
potent as well as more expensive at the retail street level than the marijuana which was
being smuggled into the US back in the 70s and 80s. But again quoting the same 2005
National Drug Threat Assessment: the documented rise in marijuana potency (Table 2)
is more a factor of the availability of and demand for better quality marijuana.
11

Table 2. Average THC Concentration, Percentage by Year Confiscated, 1994-2002
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002
Marijuana 3.50 3.87 4.21 4.68 5.11
Sinsemilla 7.49 9.23 12.33 12.71 11.43
Source: Potency Monitoring Project.
The United States witnessed a growth in the availability and abuse of
methamphetamine starting in the 1980s, due to a substantial increase in hospital
admissions for persons addicted to speed. The US government attempted to halt the
illegal manufacturing of meth by regulating the sale and distribution of the precursor
chemicals used to manufacture the drug, by large scale producers. Regulations targeting
precursors used by large-scale producers reduced admissions substantially during the
study period. However, the regulation of precursors used primarily by small-scale

11
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Intelligence Center National Drug Threat
Assessment 2005 : 27

7
producers had little, if any, effect.
12
Instead of reducing the supply and availability of
the drug, the unintended consequence was to spread out the manufacturing and
distribution of the drug to small towns and rural communities. These small scale
manufacturers used over the counter cold medications and other more easily obtained
chemicals to process the cold medications into a less pure but still effective form of
methamphetamine. Reduced production from such laboratories could have the untoward
effect of pushing users into self- production. (Precursor chemicals for small-scale
production can be extracted easily from cold and sinus medicines available at local stores,
albeit in limited quantities post regulation.).
13
The end result was an explosion in rural
manufacturing and dangerous explosions of small kitchen labs used by meth addicts to
cook up their own supplies of speed. While the increase in arrests that resulted from these
tighter regulations can be in part attributed to tighter regulation of the chemical
precursors for methamphetamine, this was an unintended consequence of the regulations.
The net effect of the regulations was intended to reduce the supply of meth, but the
increase in arrests tells us that supplies were not reduced because that would have
resulted in a reduction in arrests for meth offences, rather than an increase.
Mexico was and still is a major supplier of marijuana to markets in the United
States, but has also now become heavily involved in smuggling more potent and
profitable drugs such as heroin, cocaine and most recently crystal methamphetamine aka
Ice (using routes originally developed for US marijuana markets). Recent efforts by
states to reduce the supply of home grown meth by restricting the availability of the

12
James K.Cunningham and Liu Lon-Mu. "Impacts of federal ephedrine and pseudoephedrine regulations
on methamphetamine-related hospital admissions." Addiction Vol. 98 No. 9 (2003):1229.
13
James K.Cunningham and Liu Lon-Mu. "Impacts of federal ephedrine and pseudoephedrine regulations
on methamphetamine arrests." Addiction Vol. 100 No. 4 (2005): 481.

8
ingredients used to produce meth in the US, have led to an increase in the production
and importation of a more potent variety called crystal meth or ice from larger drug
labs in Mexico. At the national level, Randy Weaver, senior research specialist of the
National Drug Intelligence Center states that: Mexican organizations have managed to
remain steps ahead of law enforcement in developing and maintaining sources of supply
for both ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. They have answered every attempt at regulation
with an almost immediate shift to an alternate source.
14
The following chart in Table 3
is one that was used by Mr. Weaver at the National Methamphetamine Drug Conference
(which was convened by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy aka
ONDCP) that compares and contrasts the initial US home grown meth labs with the
larger new crystal meth labs springing up in Mexico.
Table 3
Lab Operations
Trends and Patterns
Mexico
larger
more secure
150200 lbs
family owned
property
numerous sites
United States
smaller
less secure
1050 lbs
rented or brokered
numerous sites
Approximately 5-6lbs of toxic waste per lb of meth produced

At the state level, Richard Van Haaften said that In the seven months since Iowa
passed a law restricting the sale of cold medicines used to make methamphetamine,
seizures of homemade methamphetamine laboratories have dropped to just 20 a month

14
www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/ drugfact
9
from 120.
15
Van Haaften, (Iowas state drug policy director) like officials in other states
with similar restrictions, is now worried about a new problem: the drop in home-cooked
methamphetamine has been met by a new flood of crystal methamphetamine coming
largely from Mexico "The Mexican drug cartels were right there to feed that demand,"
said Tom Cunningham, the drug task force coordinator for the district attorneys council
for Oklahoma, the first state to put pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters, in 2004.
"They have always supplied marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. When we took away the
local meth lab, they simply added methamphetamine to the truck."
16

The ONDCP also weighs in with this assessment from its 2006 National Drug
Threat Assessment: Decreases in domestic methamphetamine production have been
offset by increased production in Mexico.
17
It has become clear that the officials the US
and state governments have charged with the task of fighting the war on drugs are both
acknowledging the balloon effect of their own supply reduction strategies as well as
their inability to come up with a supply reduction strategy which will actually work to
reduce drug availability.
Part II
This paper has focused on US efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs primarily
because, like it or not, the US determines international policies about illegal drugs. The
chief American argument in favor of its illegal drugs policies is a moral one; a sentiment
expressed by the first US drug enforcement czar William Bennett, who said: The simple

15
Zernike, Kate. Potent Mexican Meth Floods In as States Curb Domestic Variety New York Times (23 January
2006):A-17
16
Ibid: A-18
17
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Intelligence Center
National Drug Threat Assessment 2006 : 15


10
fact is that drug use is wrong. And the moral argument, in the end, is the most compelling
argument. But does the fact that something is immoral necessarily mean it should also
be criminal? Many people also believe gambling is immoral, but jailing people for doing
so has become increasingly rare in America as well as other countries around the world.
In many respects, the results of the US anti-drug policies of supply reduction
mirror those of its last attempt to prohibit the use of substances that can be harmful if
they are abused; the Prohibition era. Between 1920 and 1933, US laws that outlawed the
sale of alcohol led to inflated alcohol prices, promoted bootleg suppliers, encouraged the
spread of guns and crime, increased hard-liquor drinking and corrupted a quarter of the
federal enforcement agents, all within a decade.
18

The consequences of the US war on drugs over the last forty years have likewise
inflated prices for most illegal drugs, promoted the sale of illegal bootleg drug supplies
adulterated with harmful additives, encouraged the spread of guns and violence by
warring criminal drug gangs as well as property crimes committed by drug addicts trying
to pay for the inflated prices of the drugs they need, increases in drug potency and purity
as well as the corruption of a large number of local, state and federal law enforcement
and criminal justice officials in the US and, to an even greater extent, the corruption of
law enforcement in poorer nations which produce or provide transit routes for illegal
drugs. Furthermore, the US exerts pressure on these poorer countries to stop the illegal
trade even if this results in environmental damage and or a diminution of civil liberties.
But many of the publics notions about the harmful effects of drug use are also
based on the aggressive and or criminal behavior of addicts who represent a relatively

18
A survey of illegal drugs: Stumbling in the dark. The Economist (26 July, 2001)

11
small minority of the portion of the population that consumes these drugs. Before they
were made illegal, users of drugs like heroin and cocaine did not become addicted at rates
much different than the addiction rates for alcohol. But the purity and potency of these
drugs increased after they were made illegal thus leading to increases in addiction to
them. In the, Heroin Century, Tom Carnwath and Ian Smith also note that both opium
and aspirin were discovered by the same team of German researchers in 1897 and that
these researchers believed opium, not aspirin, would be the more useful medical product.
These German researchers also noted that both compounds had relatively mild side
effects which they thought were acceptable given their analgesic pain relief benefits.
19

The reality about the use of illegal drugs in most countries, especially among
younger people, is that the drugs they prefer, like marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, pain killers
and amphetamines, are generally not used every day. Much like alcohol, most drug users
tend to indulge in them only on weekends or one or two nights a week with their friends.
This is not to say such drugs are harmless. As is so often seen with alcohol and many
prescription drugs, there will always be a certain number, roughly 10-15 percent, who
will subsequently become addicted to these drugs just as there has always been a certain
percentage of people who will become addicted to legal prescription drugs and alcohol.
Nor do many of these types of illegal drugs cause the kind of harm to users and
abusers that many politicians and government suggest is one of the primary reasons why
they should be prohibited. According to a fairly recent report by the European Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, their findings show Acute deaths related solely to
cocaine, amphetamines or ecstasy are unusual . despite the publicity they receive.
20


19
Tom Carnwath and Ian Smith. Heroin Century. London: Routledge, 2002.
20
General Report of Activities 2000 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2000.
12
Furthermore even though there may be some heath risks associated with the daily use of
marijuana, according to the British medical journal, Lancet It would be reasonable to
judge cannabis less of a threat than alcohol or tobacco...On the medical evidence
available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health.
21

One of the most promising alternative approaches to dealing with illegal drugs is
to treat the problems associated with drug abuse as a public health concern rather than a
criminal justice issue, a strategy that is also know by the name harm reduction. As
previously noted, some drug users will become addicts in much the same way that some
users of alcohol and prescription drugs become addicted to them. In Switzerland,
authorities in Bern and Zurich witnessed a sharp drop in drug related crime after they
opened free heroin maintenance centers to treat and stabilize addicts. More than two
thirds of the addicts who enrolled in these centers subsequently got regular jobs thanks to
their daily maintenance dose of heroin or because they had either moved on to a
methadone program or be abstinent. Police said that the number of these addicts
investigated for crimes like prostitution or burglary had also dropped by 60%.
22

In an effort to more effectively deal with the adverse consequences and harm to
users caused by illegal drugs that are adulterated with harmful substances, the Dutch
Ministry of Health in the Netherlands uses the Trimbos Institute of Mental Health and
Addiction, to test the purity of thousands of ecstasy tablets every year. Dr. Inge Spruit,
head of the institute's department of monitoring and epidemiology says that; When we
find substances such as strychnine in the tablets, we issue a public warning.
23


21
A survey of illegal drugs: Stumbling in the dark. The Economist (26 July, 2001)
22
Swiss Drug Policy Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, (September 2000).
23
Inge P. Spruit. Substance Use and Misuse: Monitoring Synthetic Drug Markets, Trends and Public
Health Trimbos Institute of Mental Health, Ministry of Health: The Netherlands, 2001.
13
Another promising alternative involves the decriminalization or possibly the
legalization of drugs like marijuana which have been recognized by many doctors as
having real medical benefits, especially for their patients who may be suffering from
diseases like glaucoma or the side effects of treatments for diseases like AIDs and cancer.
A few countries like Argentina, Belgium and Portugal have liberalized their marijuana
laws while others such as Australia and the Netherlands have effectively decriminalized
the possession and use of marijuana.
Even though marijuana is still an illegal drug under US federal law, late last year
US Attorney General Eric Holder said that in 14 states with some provisions for medical
marijuana use, federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher-level drug
traffickers, money launderers or people who use the state laws as a cover.
24
The state of
California, which has been at the forefront of a movement to legalize the use of marijuana
for medicinal purposes, is also now on the leading edge of a movement to effectively
decriminalize or possibly legalize, regulate and tax the sale of this drug.
One bill currently under consideration in the California state legislature would de-
criminalize the possession and use of marijuana for other than medical reasons by
treating such offenses the same as a parking ticket, where offenders pay a fine by mail or
over the phone, and that result in no court appearances or criminal records. Another
measure under consideration by the cash strapped California State government would
essentially treat marijuana like alcohol, making it legal for people aged 21 and over.
Sponsored by Tom Ammiano, from San Francisco, it would levy a $50 excise tax on
every ounce produced and a sales tax on top, then use those funds for drug education.
25


24
Johnson, Carrie U.S. eases stance on medical marijuana The Washington Post (20 October 2009)
25
The law of the weed The Economist (15 July, 2010)
14
But the most far reaching marijuana legalization measure is known as
Proposition 19, which will be put to voters on the November ballot. This so-called
Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, would also legalize the growing,
selling and smoking of marijuana for those older than 21, within certain limits. But it
would leave the regulation and taxation entirely up to counties and cities. These could
choose to ban the business or to tax it at whatever rate they pleased.
26

Since California is currently grappling with a huge $19 billion budget deficit, the
financial impact of Proposition is a subject of heated debate between proponents and
opponents of this measure. Some studies have estimated savings of nearly $1.9 billion as
people are no longer arrested and imprisoned because of marijuana. As for revenues,
Californias government estimates that the excise and sales taxes of the Ammiano bill
would bring in about $1.4 billion a year.
27
There is also a debate about whether these
figures may be too high or low, but there is no debate that effect will be a positive one.
Part III
History has shown that the balloon effect is an economic fact of life throughout
the world. If demand exists for a product or service (any product or service, be it legal or
illegal) then someone will figure out a way to supply that product or service and make a
profit doing so. Operating in a free market, capitalist oriented society, one would think
that the politicians and government officials might understand this. It is for this reason
that strategies, which are focused on reducing demand for alcohol and drugs, are the only
ones that have any chance of success in the war on drugs. Following are 7 suggestions
on ways to reduce the demand for legal and illegal drugs as well as the abuse of them.

26
The law of the weed The Economist (15 July, 2010)
27
The law of the weed The Economist (15 July, 2010)
15
1. Legalize marijuana and hashish, regulate the percentage content of
THC, document it on labels the way alcoholic beverages document
proof to ascertain alcohol content percentages, apply federal and state
taxes in the same manner they are currently applied to alcohol and
tobacco products and use tax proceeds to fund mandatory treatment and
education programs at both the federal and state levels.
2. Treat sales of marijuana products the same as alcohol and tobacco
products with minimum age requirements (18 or 21), no limit on
purchases, labels warning of the health risks associated with their use.
3. Apply driving under the influence and public intoxication statutes,
as they currently apply to alcohol, to all legal and or illegal drug use by
establishing maximum blood and urine levels to determine degrees of
impairment for abusers.
4. Establish uniform levels of possession for both legal and illegal drugs,
to distinguish between users and distributors or traffickers. For
instance: less than 10 grams of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine etc.
is considered simple possession and more than that quantity may be
considered possession with the intent to sell.
5. Redirect drug war spending priorities towards treatment and
education awareness programs for drug and alcohol users and abusers
by increasing budgets for federal and state alcohol and drug treatment
programs and boosting spending on drug and alcohol education and
awareness films and commercials.
6. Redirect (tax payer financed) law enforcement resources involved in
educating school children about drugs, by using recovering alcoholics
and drug addicts (who will speak in schools at no cost to taxpayers) to
educate young people in schools on the dangers and risks associated
with the use and abuse of alcohol, as well as legal or illegal drugs
7. Crack down on the source of demand for drugs and alcohol, the drug
abuser, by mandating jail and or or treatment program minimum
sentences for offenders, which escalate with each subsequent offence,
similar to current state laws which dictate minimum sentences for
driving under the influence. For instance:
1
st
offence possession or DUI = 30days in jail or a 12 week out-patient
treatment program plus 1 year of unsupervised probation.
2
nd
offence possession or DUI = 90days in jail or 30days in-patient
treatment plus 1 year of supervised probation
3
rd
offence possession or DUI = 6 months jail or 90 days in state
incarceration treatment plus 1 year of supervised probation
4
th
offence possession or DUI = 1 year in jail or 6 months in state
incarceration treatment plus 1 to 2 years of supervised probation
5
th
and all subsequent possession or DUI offences = Mandatory 6
month state incarceration treatment + 1 year in jail + 2 years probation

16
Demand reduction strategies arent always popular with the families of drug users
and they dont grab headlines like big drug seizures do, but they will work over time if
given a chance. Since 40 years of supply reduction tactics have only succeeded in
increasing the potency and or reducing the street prices of illegal drugs like cocaine,
heroin and pot, the time has come to make a concerted effort to reduce demand instead.
Despite massive investments in border patrols, overseas crop eradication efforts,
Department of Defense involvement and arrests of drug smugglers and drug dealers, the
drug war has not reduced the supply of drugs nor made them more costly to obtain. The
market prices for illegal drugs follow the same laws of supply and demand that apply to
all commodities. The drug war creates an artificially high commodity price, and these
huge profit margins have encouraged more drug producers to enter the market. Greater
production has created economies of scale.
28

After forty years of attempts to reduce supplies of illegal drugs through a
combination of international pressure on other countries which produce these products
are provide transportation routes for them and criminal penalties for those caught selling
them, even if only in relatively small quantities, its time to try a different approach. I am
not advocating for legalization because despite the obvious economic value for
governments of this approach, it is currently not a politically acceptable one for most
politicians and voters. But if we are truly interested in winning the war on drugs we must
start treating the cause (the feel good desires of drug consumers) and stop spending
billions of dollars reacting to and trying to treat the symptoms (drug dealers and violent
criminal drug smuggling gangs that are supplying them with illegal drugs).

28
Kevin B. Zeese and Paul M. Lewin 1999. The Effective National Drug Control Strategy
http://www.csdp.org/edcs/authors.htm
17
Bibliography
A survey of illegal drugs: Stumbling in the dark. The Economist (26 July, 2001)
Carnwath, Tom and Ian Smith. Heroin Century. London: Routledge, 2002.
Cunningham, James K. and Lon-Mu Liu."Impacts of federal precursor chemical regulations on
methamphetamine arrests."Addiction. Vol. 100 No. 4 (2005):479-488.
Cunningham, James K. and Lon-Mu Liu "Impacts of federal ephedrine and pseudoephedrine
regulations on methamphetamine-related hospital admissions." Addiction. Vol. 98 No.
9 (2003):1229-1237.
Drucker, Dr. Ernest. "Drug Prohibition and Public Health." Public Health Reports U.S. Public
Health Service. Vol. 114. (Jan/Feb 1998)
General Report of Activities 2000 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction, 2000.
Johnson, Carrie U.S. eases stance on medical marijuana The Washington Post (20 October
2009)
MacCoun, Robert J. and Peter Reuter. Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times,
& Places. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Intelligence Center
National Drug Threat Assessment 2005.
Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Intelligence Center
National Drug Threat Assessment 2006.
Spruit, Inge P. Substance Use and Misuse: Monitoring Synthetic Drug Markets, Trends and
Public Health Trimbos Institute of Mental Health, Ministry of Health: The
Netherlands, 2001.
18
Swiss Drug Policy Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, (September 2000).
Thoumi, Francisco E. 2003, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes. Washington
D.C. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003.
Thoumi, Francisco E. 1995, Political Economy & Illegal Drugs in Colombia. Boulder, CO.
Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc., 1995.
Weisheit Ralph A. 1992. Domestic marijuana: a neglected industry. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1992.
Weisheit, Ralph A. 1990. Drugs, Crime and the Criminal Justice System. Westport, CT
Greenwood Press, 1990.
Zeese, Kevin B. and Paul M. Lewin The Effective National Drug Control Strategy, 1999.
Zernike, Kate. Potent Mexican Meth Floods In as States Curb Domestic Variety New York
Times (23 January 2006) available on line at:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E3DA133FF930A15752C0A960
9C8B63
The drugs business; Successes in the war on drugs expose the policys limits The Economist
(24 June, 2010)
The Effective National Drug Control Strategy Network of Reform Groups in consultation
with the National Coalition for Effective Drug Policies available on line at:
http://www.csdp.org/edcs/authors.htm
The law of the weed: California, ever a global leader in cannabis matters, may forge ahead
again. The Economist (15 July, 2010)
The National Methamphetamine Drug Conference available on line at:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/drugfact/methconf/contents.html