UK could save £14bn from drug legalization
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 1:00 pm | By: MrSpof
The report looked at four potential scenarios, ranging from no increase in drugs use to a 100% rise as they become more readily available.
“The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9bn, £10.8bn, £7.7bn, £4.6bn.”
Titled a Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs, the report uses government figures on the costs of crime to assess the potential benefits and disadvantages of change. The document, co-written by Steve Rolles, head of research at Transform, uses home office and No 10 strategy unit reports to form its conclusions.
It finds: “The government specifically claims the benefits of any move away from prohibition towards legal regulation would be outweighed by the costs. No such cost-benefit analysis, or even a proper impact assessment of existing enforcement policy and legislation has ever been carried out here or anywhere else in the world.”
via The Guardian “Legalisation of drugs could save UK £14bn, says study“
[I particularly like that in this study, they hypothesized the drug prohibitionist's most hysterical warnings that legalization would lead to cannabis zombies roaming the streets because use would skyrocket (STRAAIINS!! STRAAIINS!!). Even if drug use doubled, a 100% increase, they still found they would save £4.6 billion. Of course, I always say that everyone who wants to smoke pot is already smoking pot; I don't think marijuana usage would rise much at all. 84% of high school seniors already say they can access pot fairly easily. I think adult usage may rise, but that teen use may fall to counteract that as marijuana moves into adults-only stores that check IDs for age 21 and over. We've seen teen tobacco rates fall as states raise their tobacco age from 18 to 19 and as others more strictly enforce age 18 tobacco laws. -- "R"R]
Topics: England, Home Office, UK
