Awkward Utopia

Our best debate in UES regarding drug legalization occurred about a year and a half ago, if I recall. Someone, let’s call him JHJ4USA, stood on one side, perhaps with Sammy, while the vast majority of us stood on the other side. We favored legalizing drugs, whether instantly or over a long period of time, while they argued that drug legalization would lead to:

1. Increased use
2. Many cities looking like Amsterdam or Rotterdam in terms of crime and junkies
3. More deaths from intoxication
4. Less productivity at work

We already have many of these things from highly prevalent drug use, mostly from alcohol, so there is some evidence that might support JHJ4USA’s assertions. However, using drugs is already very common. People who want to use them generally can, if they can surpass the social stigmas involved with them relating to their self-esteem and the esteem of others.

I contended then, as I do now, that in the immediate short-term of legalization, use would go up. There’s no doubt about that. And it’s difficult to say how the market might respond to corporations getting involved in the act, the price going down, and purer products being made, which may alleviate some of the costs associated with drugs. However, in the long-run, I believe use would go down. The social stigmas aren’t going anywhere (and consider how strong they are with athletes, nerds, and older aged people). The social stigmas only dissolve when large groups form. Would you want to be seen walking into a marijuana supply store on Main Street? No, it’d be like wanting to be seen walking into a XXX store.

To me, Justin Wolfers’ recent destruction of the Divorce Myth may very well provide evidence that supports my argument:

…those married in the 1990s have proved less likely to divorce than those wed in the 1980s, which were less likely to divorce than those wed in the 1970s. The Divorce Facts are that divorce is falling, and marriages are more stable.

Really? Look here:

Wolfers and his domestic part­ner, Betsey Stevenson, who is also an assistant professor in the same department at Wharton, studied 150 years of marriage and divorce data and concluded that, contrary to popular belief, more lenient laws have not led to a significant long-term increase in divorce. Instead, rates spiked when divorce became easier, then retreated toward their earlier levels. Meanwhile, the two concluded in an article last year in The Quarterly Journal of Economics that the liberalization of divorce laws coincided with sharp declines in rates of domestic violence, as well as declines in suicide rates among married women—though not married men.

Ouch.