New Orleans is now undergoing an unprecedented murder rate, even for the Big Uneasy. How can we dig our way out of this morass?
The usual solutions have all been tried, have not worked in the past and will not help us now. According to the conventional wisdom, the way to stop people from shooting at each other is to improve our public schools, promote day care, stop the drug trade with stiffer sentences, start midnight basketball leagues, bring in the social workers, promote religion, subsidize parenting skills, introduce citizenship and ethics classes in high school … this list of ineptitude goes on and on.
These “remedies” are either focused way too far in the long run to even be relevant to our critical short run problems, never have addressed and cannot solve such challenges or are actually counterproductive, exacerbating murder rates, not diminishing them.
So let us take a deep breath, open our minds and consider something radical, way off the beaten track: Let us legalize drugs, all of them without exception, preeminently including marijuana, cocaine and, yes, heroin. (Legalization is sharply to be distinguished from favoring the use of these substances, something I strongly oppose.)
What does this have to do with the gigantic number of murders now afflicting New Orleans? Plenty.
An inordinate amount of these episodes consists of drug dealers shooting each other in turf wars. End the prohibition, and this viciousness stops right in its tracks. Nor are these murders likely to end any time soon.
Things of this sort were kept down to a dull roar before Hurricane Katrina. A sort of equilibrium was attained. Every gang knew its place, at least roughly. “Property rights” in street corners and back alleyways were semi-established. Yes, from time to time there was a bit of blood letting, as criminals served their sentences and tried to reclaim what used to be “their” territory, or, as dealers were killed or retired, and miniature wars broke out until the new pecking order was established.
But then came the failure of the levees. “Our” dealers tried to set up shop in Houston, Memphis, Atlanta and other such refuges. The local denizens did not appreciate that one bit. Conflagrations broke out there. Then, as the Crescent City began to repopulate, heroin entrepreneurs began trickling back along with these crowds. Paradoxically, so did this increased crime in the temporary refuge cities from which these gangsters were emigrating, and also in New Orleans as they arrived back here. For both the egress and ingress set up jurisdictional disputes over turf, and the battle lines were drawn again and again in blood. This inflated murder rate will only recede to pre-Katrina levels, which were horrible enough in that bygone era, when post-hurricane movement of population slows down to previous levels. That point may not be reached for decades.
It is thus time – it is past time – to drain the swamps instead of following our present policy of fighting the alligators. Legalizing addictive drugs, every last one of them, will stop all this gang warfare for sure, and immediately.
Why? If marijuana, heroin, etc., were legal, it would be sold in ordinary legitimate stores such as pharmacies. These would replace the present fly-by-night murderous operators. Customers would simply rather purchase brand name cocaine, replete with labels and money back guarantees in case of defective products, as in the case of all other consumption goods. Standard business ventures have a comparative advantage over hoodlums whose only specialty resides in violence.When alcohol was prohibited (1920-1933), gangs fought it out in the streets with machine guns for the right to sell their bathtub gin. Innocent bystanders were killed in the cross fire, just as at present. Backwoods stills killed still more, with their battery acid products. Nowadays, peace reigns in this industry. Johnny Walker and Four Roses compete with each other not with bullets, but in terms of the traditional commercial aspects of price, advertising, availability, quality, reputation, etc. The mafia is no longer involved. No one dies, no one, in the creation, manufacture, wholesaling, distribution, transportation and retailing of this product. For similar reasons, the same beneficial effects will ensue when, and as soon as, we legalize drugs.
But will we not die like flies from these addictive substances once they are legalized? There is no more reason to think so than to believe that when the prohibition of booze ended, it encouraged an orgy of drunkenness. Pretty much the same people who liquored up before 1920 did so after 1933, and there is every reason to believe that drug legalization would follow the same path. Those who now abuse drugs will still likely continue to do so. Is there anyone, now, who refrains from their use simply because they are illegal? Yes, both drugs and alcohol will remain medical problems post legalization, but the crime will be eradicated from both.
Walter Block is a professor of business administration and Wirth chairman of economics.
