The illegal drug trade is, from an economic perspective, a touchy subject. Economics strives for optimum performance and minimal loss for society, but how do illegal drugs fit into this idea? On the side of anti-drug proponents you have a slew of users who may potentially spread the use of these substances to other people who would not try these drugs if they were illegal. On the other side you have this video. You have the truth that when substances are made illegal, people are made criminals, and a black market is established in place of a potentially controlled and monitored market. From this black market around goods with such high demand (almost inelastic demand when one considers addicts) stems crime and violence. Other negative side effects of making drugs illegal include more prisoners in jail, a market-distorting high price (the money a drug user spends on expensive drugs could have gone toward other products) and, at least for Mexico, political instability. The cost of trying to prevent our citizens from using these drugs may not only exceed the benefit, but may also be an entirely futile attempt at prevention.
Understanding that the argument for illegality of a wide variety of addictive, if not life threatening, drugs is entirely logical and righteous, proponents of illegality must realize their voice extends to substances that do not deserve to become the cause of the next Mexican car bomb. I argue that U.S. drug policy makers, influencers, and activists must do with marijuana what they did with alcohol and cigarettes: remove their association with drugs. Alcohol contains the chemical ethanol yet merely from experience, people would hardly ever call alcohol a drug. (What if marijuana existed in liquid form?) Chemicals are added to tobacco that make cigarettes addictive, so if it is not the addiction, the smoking, or a chemical that makes marijuana, and many other illegal substances, coined "drugs", could it simply be their apparent illegality?
When considering the video, the suffering, the war, can one really argue that the potential prevention of our citizens from smoking a cigarette of reefer is worth the lives of thousands across Latin America? I understand the argument that making drugs legal could increase usage, demand and could even exacerbate the war in Mexico (I doubt the latter since I believe established companies like in the tobacco and alcohol industries would take the place of underground marijuana cartels), but our society must reconsider which of these drugs are actually lethal drugs and which are called drugs merely as a byproduct of this particular era's views (I chose to ignore scientific arguments on marijuana since alcohol damages organs and kills lives yet is legal). If marijuana could be produced, traded and regulated at home like the tobacco industry, perhaps we could shift production from our friend to the south, not only saving lives but reinforcing our own economy.
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