Letters to the Editor
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Price vs consumption in the drug trade
I'm really not sure whether you are seriously asking that question or not.
Addictive substances are price insentitive. The legal barriers to hard drugs are sufficient that anyone who is willing to get past thme is willing to pay whatever it takes. Conversely, no one who is unwilling to surmount those barriers cares about the cost.
Tobacco and alchohol have lower legal barriers, so there are still price sensitive consumers in the market.
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LEAN
nice to see drug dealers applying LEAN supply-chain management concepts. Why are porn companies and drug dealers always so good at identifying and implementing new technology while legal manufacturers lag years behind?
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flat demand for drugs
If I may, I would like to advance a theory as to why drug demand seems unchanged. It is because drug demand is inelastic. Those who want to do coke and heroin will pay any price. Those who do not want to do coke and heroin will not take it for free.
That is why the War on Drugs is so assinine. We devote many billions of dollars to trying to drive up the cost of drugs, both the price and risk of incarceration. This is all foolishness. We don't need to do this to keep most people from using drugs because drug use already carries its own penalties. For those who have no fear of addiction or other losses, the fear of jail provides little marginal disincentive.
A brief explanation and a longer rant.
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This might be seen as evidence that drug use/abuse is in fact a symptom and not actually the problem ...
the overall number of people has continued to climb and, although most western populations are "aging" in percentages, I'm not sure how big an effect that would have on a fairly circumscribed market. It also appears that production has at least "kept up" -- despite what sound like genuinely aggressive efforts at eradication/interdiction.
It would seem that there is a limited appeal for these products ... a circumscribed life span use cycle for most users ... that curtails the sort of exponential growth such bargain basement pricing might suggest.
Of course, the availability of these drugs varies widely AND some may be experiencing competition from blackmarket pharmacuticals, see also Anna Nicole Smith and other Broadway Babies who appear to have ready access to Dr. Feelgoods, while chronic pain sufferers and the doctors who treat them are under seemingly everincreasing scrutiny.
Sheesh, I don't know.
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As expected
Thanks to the War on Drugs. By creating a highly Darwinian environment, the government has managed to weed out inefficient producers, drive costs down, and increase availability. The fact that demand has not increased during that time completely destroys the whole "if we legalize drugs the streets will be littered with addicts" argument.
Even the softer drugs are feeling the impact. Some cite the increase in the price of pot as a sign of the success of the WoD, but that fails to take into account the fact that the pot that costs $400 an ounce now cost $400 an ounce 25 years ago. The availability of nasty $40 an ounce pot has been seriously affected, because the gov't has managed to drive small growers with a generic product out of business (at least in this area). But the market is thriving and $400 pot is about 10 times better than $40 pot so the effect to the consumer is minimized.
So, if pretty much exactly as many people are using drugs now as would be if they were legal, what are we getting for all that funding aside from increased street violence as dealers fight for marketshare to replace margins (they are not fighting for an increased share of a shrinking market, contrary to what we are told) and overcrowded prisons? A profound sense of well being that comes from knowing we are doing the right thing? The knowledge that we are somehow better than the Dutch? I don't know, but whatever it is I'd rather have the money.
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Flat Demand?
I'd like to counter that demand is flat. I just finished my first nine months in New York, and while there met and made good friends with a socialite intimately cognizant of drug use patterns in the city at large over a long period of time. He lived through the coke boom of the seventies, and says that not only are prices lower, but that the drug's popularity has skyrocketed--approaching the widespread, almost common levels of use during the seventies.
I admit that it's anecdotal, but I'll testify that frequent bathroom trips are not really frowned upon, and are rapidly losing what stigma they have left on both coasts of the States.
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benkaplin
what you relate, anecdotal or not, is interesting and worthy of response.
Socialites in New York. Are we to believe that these people are very sensitive to price? To me, anyone who can afford to live in New York City, never mind a socialite, is someone who can pay either $20 or $80 dollars or whatever price to get high, if that is something they really want to do.
Also you mention the high rate of use in the 70s. My understanding is that New York's drug laws were substantially enacted in the 60s and they are very draconian. They are called the Rockefeller Laws. The fact that the most notorious drug use of the 70s took place in New York tends to show that strict or lax laws have little impact since many other states had more lenient drug laws and they were not centers of notorious use and abuse of cocaine at that time.
It seems to me that use of drugs waxes and wanes based on sub-cultural norms that evolve substantially separate from formal laws or prevailing attitudes of the culture at large. It also seems that drug using subcultures are not driven by price of drugs.
I think nationally drug use has remained flat or declining depending on demographic trends, mostly the proportion of young people within our population. I don't have anectdotes for this, only half-remembered statistics with no cites thereto.
I still think the War on Drugs cries out for further justification based on evidence, not supposition or wishfull thinking.
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My local area, tiny mountain community, experienced a rash of fatal overdoses a couple of years ago ...
by people who I suspect were long-time binge users (employed aging hippie types, food service/bar industry) and I suspect that over time high availability and low prices will perceptibly kill off some of the market...
Out of control addiction (satiated or not) is likely to result in family or state intervention leading to cessation of use (at least temporarily) via rehab or incarceration.
Most people don't want to die and/or alienate everyone who cares about them and/or otherwise lose everything when simply holding a job is in jeopardy -- so people practice self-control.
For the most part, big users fit a narrow profile of people with access to money, nothing better else to do, under little or no supervision/commitments ... young singles fit well ... most everyone else has varying levels of other commitments, usually increasing with age -- job/future plans, spouse, kids, house, car payments.
I agree there's an enormous population that wouldn't consider touching the stuff -- even if it were free and legal.