Demand Destruction of Drug Use in America

 

I once met a drug dealer that told me his two busiest business days were Fridays and Saturdays. When I asked why, he said those are the nights when white people from the suburbs drove downtown to buy their drugs for their weekend high. It’s interesting that most of America’s drug users are white, but the majority of those incarcerated for drug possession are Black and Hispanic.

 

Americans consume 70% of all the world’s illegal drugs. Why do Americans spend time and money getting high? That answer I do not know, but in order to stop the drug trade, you have to destroy the demand, thereby creating a chain reaction which removes the profit motive.  

 

Demand Destruction is a term in reference to Peak Oil, in which as oil resources become scarce, the price will increase to a point where it is unaffordable for average people to buy, thereby destroying the demand for oil.

 

The ideas of Demand Destruction can also be applied to the drug trade in America by targeting the drug user. Here is a three prong approach:

 

1. Make drugs unaffordable: create an environment where the social cost of buying drugs becomes unaffordable to the average drug user.  Create harsh penalties for drug users such as:

 

• A felony conviction
• A mandatory minimum sentence of 12 months in jail doing public works (park cleanup, trails, environmental cleanup)
• Upon release they would be charged for court costs, room and board while in jail, and any drug treatment/counseling costs
• If they have children, they can be billed by social services for any child foster care, counseling, and healthcare cost that accrued while they were incarcerated  

 

Most of America’s drug users are working and middle class white Americans who would find a felony conviction and time in jail detrimental to their standard of living.  Most of these buyers would lose jobs, homes, and assets, while also carrying a felony conviction that would hinder them from replacing the formerly well paying job that supported their drug habits to begin with.

 

2. Create fear of buying drugs: Create an environment where users are afraid to buy drugs; this decreases the incentive of street level drug gangs to sell drugs and, at a strategic level, the motivation of the cartels to export this destructive product.  No demand means, no profit, and no profit means no competition among street level gangs which would decrease the street violence while also removing the primary funding source of criminal enterprises.

 

3. Target suspected business front operations:  force these criminal enterprises to centralize their operations through consumer fear of buying on the street. These underground enterprises such as storefront businesses and clubs would actually be easier to target and investigate by law enforcement with sting operations. This again feeds the consumers fear of conviction, destroying demand.

 

But being that most of America’s drug users are white working class and middle class Americans, I doubt such a strategy would be implemented.  Americans tend to need a scapegoat (violent drug dealers) to blame for problems that they themselves support through their personal weekend drug use. It’s easier to blame other people for one’s problems rather than face up to the underlying reasons why working class and middle class white Americans choose to get high. But with such childish hypocrisy and immaturity also goes the moral high ground.