Marijuana Debate

As I have just finished grading our latest position paper (the one that has legalization of marijuana as an optional position) I found the vast majority of students taking the position that marijuana should be legalized. This is three semesters in a row (five classes) that I have found this to be the case (each of my classes ranging from 80% to 100% pro legalization). So I plan on opening our next class with the question of "If so many people think this way, why is it still illegal?". One answer is that this is a political dilemma, not so much an economic one. Talk about a timely piece in our Inquirer today by a political writer to put the politics into perspective. The money quote:


Update: I cant get over how timely this topic is. Here is an article from Rolling Stone
(The quote is from the first link)

So much of the marijuana debate used to be about morality; now it's mostly about economics and practicality - which is why New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island are also floating measures to legalize and tax; why similar voter referendums are in the works in Washington state and Oregon; why 14 states (including, most recently, New Jersey) have legalized medical marijuana, and why even Pennsylvania, hardly a pacesetting state, is weighing the sanction of medical pot, complete with 6 percent sales tax

How to Fight Drugs in the US?

Imagine the President of the US comes to you with a set amount of money to combat illegal drugs in the US. It is up to you to allocate this money as you see fit. Keep in mind that the demand for illegal drugs is probably inelastic. Your options are as follows:

1) Attack the supply of drugs: This option was taken by past administrations (at lease since the ‘war on drugs’ campaign in the 80’s). What is the result? Decrease supply, increase price (by a lot) and decrease quantity (by a little).

2) Attack the demand for drugs: This option has been suggested by many economist since we believe there is a reasonable chance that the result would be a decrease in demand, a decrease in price (which decreases revenue for the sellers), and decreases quality by a larger magnitude.

Now there is some evidence that Obama may consider the latter option with his latest pick for the number two drug czar (a local guy). Money quote:

He “…will be charged with reducing demand for drugs, a part of the foreign-supply-and-domestic-demand equation…”

Crime in Philly

Economics is about maximizing unlimited wants with limited resources. When it comes to fighting crime we want to minimize crime subject to the police cost constraints.

With this in mind Michael Smerconish writes in the inquirer an article that cites this study. A quote from Smerconish:

They determined that certain factors can help forecast whether an individual is
more likely to commit a homicide (or attempted homicide) while they're under
parole supervision.

These factors are interesting (and maybe controversial).