Well, where to start. Personally I don't smoke 'the herb' but believe that a logically consistent and coherent cost benefit analysis is rarely employed in evaluating the relative merits/demerits of criminalisation/prohibition versus legalisation/regulation.
This seems to be the case both in the i) theoretical sense (the elements selected to be balanced on either the cost or benefit side are picked arbitrarily to give a pre-determined 'answer' rather than using a more holistic and coherent approach to cost/benefit element selection pre-analysis) and the ii) evidential cost benefit analysis (suffers from this same 'partisan element selection' problem but also suffers from an additional problem whereby cultural specific data/results are generalised to give specific 'answers', [e.g. applying the Portugal or Holland data to predict what this would mean in other cultures] a subsidiary issue here relates to partisan element selection often ignoring data from the globalised reality of illicit production and this related impact across borders. In other words costs and benefits are evaluated within a nation and not across them).
A further, and at first blush insurmountable, methodological obstacle is that of incomensurability between disparate elements or data. How can one weigh the cost of a negative health impact for an individual in a western country against the risk of torture or more severe cartel or government violence in a 'producing' country (assuming for example illegality in both locations). I will come back to this later, but for now let's hold this though.
Let's move away from the usual intellectually dishonest element selection and get back to a more coherent approach then. In order to more justifiably evaluate the costs and benefits it would first be necessary to make several analytical distinctions. We could, for example, take a fairly uncontentious approach as follows: Everyone can agree that their are both individual and social implications to both legalisation and prohibition. Further most would also agree that implications can further be divided across national, international and transnational geographies. So if we assume the importance of elements along both a broad and narrow selection we can reach the most complete scope for our initial analysis. Right now we have 3 core element selection areas (individual level, social level , national/globalised level) We could then think of several potential costs and benefits at each of these conceptual levels and ask how they would manifest within a state of legality or a state of illegality (ideally one would want to collect actual data across each variable type but one could also make logical assumptions and speculate in other justifiable ways). One may list, for example both negative and positive effects across variables such as: individual physical health, individual psychological health, individual economic issues, social cultural, social economic, social structural organisation, exploitation by criminal enterprise, exploitation by governmental structure, transnational commerce. These are but a few examples, a more exhaustive list would of course be required to investigate the issue beyond the cursory methodological level at which we are currently aiming.
This being said I personally am of the view that when comparing the costs and benefits of legalisation versus the costs and benefits of illegality we would more than likely see that the prohibition itself provides a kind of global cost which far outweighs the purported benefits of legalisation. This is what I was suggesting was the case despite my incomensurability point earlier. Even if it were true that legalisation would increase consumption and therefore, let's say, related domestic health costs (which the cultural specific data of Portugal for example does not show, it shows the opposite; a decrease of consumption post legalisation). So even if we were to ignore this data and assume that legalisation would increase individual, social and national level health costs in a consumption country this would imho be offset by the related reduction in costs in an exporting producing country. The type of costs saving in the producing country, moreover, may not be directly commensurable but would be on a different value scale to those (also debatable) health costs in the consumer country. Gang warfare over production territories, militarisation of whole countries, large quantities of ilicit money corrupting political, economic and social development in the supply countries and all the related spilt blood and lost opportunity as a result would probably tip the balance quite far in one direction.
As I said before, and I am being slightly guilty of this myself, a serious cost benefit analysis would have to be done across various elements to reach a proper answer; to pick favourable variables is in itself is not really justifiable. Even so, with all the data we have currently available the very least what ought to be done is to seriously consider experimentation and re evaluation of current global legal frameworks. In this regard I praise Uruguay's attempts.
A further problem which is perhaps worth mentioning relates to the politicisation of the topic. What I mean by this is that both in democracy and dictatorship the political classes have certain topics/discourses/logics which are used instrumentally in the perpetuation of the status quo and related power structures. These issues usually take on a functionality in politics which goes beyond the logic of the contents which the discourses represent. Moreover the ideological investment put into certain closed and simplified 'political slogans or messages' can be very hard for the political classes to break free from once they have adopted them in this instrumental manner. This is the case despite contradictory independent, non political, coherent and logical evaluations/research, whether scientific, social or moral. We can see this clearly in the UK where every few years an independent expert committee or royal commission is set up to investigate drug legality/legalisation, generally they make detailed cost benefit analysis and recommend that cannabis should be decriminalised or recategorised. The government of the day always ignores this recommendation.
PS; Sorry for the lack of clarity but half way through writing this I realised I may have bitten off more than I can currently chew. I in any case have decided to post it despite the possibility that I may be producing more heat than light...
Thoughts... ?
