Kleiman, Caulkins & Hawken do an overall good job at presenting the various sides of the war on drugs conundrum, and their book is indeed an easy read. But this comes at a price as their perspective is sometimes simplistic and self-serving. While they do not seem to deny that the current prohibitionist policies have created a big mess, they seem to believe that alternatives would be far worse, while they fail to truly explore all the viable alternatives. Between prohibition and free market, there is a continuum of options and free-market is certainly not the only alternative. Likewise, regulations should differ widely according to the substance, the mode of administration and the type of user. Kleiman & all correctly point out a variety of potential problems, such as the potential conflicts of interests between the various actors of a regulated drug marketplace, pitting employees and shareholders against regulators. They also correctly bundle all psychoactive substances, at least to a certain point, but they fail to push their observations to its logical conclusion. The vast majority of psychoactive substances are legal, and those that are currently illegal can be compared to legal counterparts that are at least as potentially harmful, therefore there is no logical rationale for the legal status of the substances currently illicit. As the authors correctly point out, the prohibition of certain substances create a dangerous black-market, as well as all kinds of derived problems due to complete lack of quality control and unsanitary administration practices among others. Altogether, the unintended consequences of prohibition bear a huge economic, societal and human toll, with marginal effects on price and availability. The nearly 8-fold increase in jailed population since the launch of the War on Drugs has created an underclass with no social prospects besides crime, and catastrophic consequences for dependents.
The authors seem to ignore a few facts worth noticing: Despite the huge power of the alcohol industry, alcohol abuse has been on an overall decline since it peaked in the mid-1800s to early 1900s. This has been accomplished mostly through prevention, education and decreased social acceptability of alcohol abuse. Alcohol abuse is still a huge problem, but has been reduced greatly. Same with tobacco abuse.
Cocaine use has declined substantially since its peak in the 1980s, but this has been more than compensated by the abuse of prescription drugs. To quote the authors, "non-medical use of prescription pharmaceuticals is already an enormous problem", which is putting it mildly. There seems to have been a displacement of use here. Drug prohibition is most likely merely kicking the can and displacing the underlying problem of substance abuse and addiction, with its added layer of nefarious consequences.
At the end of the day, the book is too simplistic and disappointing in its failure to truly explore alternative to the current failed prohibitionist regime. On the heel of the report issued by the Global Commission on Drug Policy issued in June 2010, the book seems outdated. I suggest reading the excellent report issued by the "Transform Drug Policy Foundation" in 2004: `After the War on Drugs: Options for Control,'
The recently released
World War D. The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization
offers a much broader picture with deeper analysis and more in-depth understanding of the issues revolving around use and abuse of psychoactive substances and the perverse effect of the criminalization of certain substances. The book also presents realistic and reasoned alternatives to the status quo.
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